


When You Wish Upon a Lion

by Bookkeeper1



Series: Voltron: Legendary Disney Experts [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Characters Watching Disney Movies, Disney, Disney References, Fluff, Gen, Mild Language, but you can infer what you'd like, no ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-09 19:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12894765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookkeeper1/pseuds/Bookkeeper1
Summary: “Huh,” Lance said. “I hadn’t realized we talked about Disney so much.”“Seriously?” Allura said, looking at him. “Lance, it’s almost always you.”Lance winced. “Oops.”After working with her Paladins for so long, Allura likes to think that she knows them pretty well. Now if someone could just explain what this Disney thing they keep talking about is...AKA The paladins confuse the Alteans with Disney, and then watch their favorite Disney movies together.





	1. Five Times the Paladins Confuse Allura with Disney and One Time They Actually Explain Themselves

1

The first time Allura saw it happen was just after a group training session. She and the paladins were making their way out of the training room, and Lance was bragging to Keith as they walked.

“And did you see that shot I made there at the end? Right through that bot’s head. Saved your butt, Keith.” Keith seemed to scowl at his words, but Lance continued on. “How many did you take down again? I bet I took care of more than you. In fact, I’m certain of it! You-”

“Lance!” Keith suddenly yelled, causing Allura and the other paladins to turn back and look at him and Lance. “That is it! I don’t care who took down more! You are the only one who cares about this dumb rivalry! Just let it go!”

What Allura expected to happen at that point was for Lance to start yelling even louder, Keith arguing back, both of them riling up the other, until Shiro had to step in and split them up. It had happened enough in the past that she was familiar with the pattern. What she did not expect to happen was for Lance to suddenly freeze, and for Hunk and Pidge to let out two identical groans at the same time.

“Keith, why?” Hunk asked, sighing and looking up to the ceiling.

“Seriously?” Pidge moaned, slapping her hand against her head.

“What? What’s wrong?” Allura asked, concerned and confused. But as she spoke Keith seemed to come to some realization, and started backing away from Lance, who hadn’t yet moved but was slowly starting to smile with a somewhat manic look in his eye.

“Lance, no, I didn’t mean... don’t you dare…” But Keith’s protests seemed to fall on deaf ears, as Lance took a step towards Keith, and did the last thing Allura expected.

He started to sing.

“Let it go! Let it go! Can’t hold it back anymore!” Lance belted out, in a voice which Allura was somewhat surprised to find was actually pretty nice. 

“Lance, knock it off, I swear…” Even as he spoke, Keith seemed to realize that this was a battle he could not win, and he made a sudden dash for the doors.

Lance chased after him, continuing on with the song. “I don’t care, what they’re going to say! Let the storm rage on!” Keith made it through the doors, but Lance was right behind him, still singing. As the doors slid shut behind them, Allura could just make out, “The cold never bothered me anyway!” 

The sudden silence of the training room seemed to echo.

“What,” Allura said flatly, looking towards the remaining paladins, “in the universe was that?”

Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge all looked at each other, and shrugged almost in unison.

“Disney,” Shiro said as if that explained everything. Then, seeming to realize that someone was going to need to protect Keith from Lance, or, more likely, Lance from Keith, he started to hurry after the boys.

“I’m surprised Keith even got that reference, to be honest,” Hunk said, following after at a more nonchalant pace than Shiro. 

“Oh, come on, Hunk,” Pidge said walking beside him at the same casual pace, “Who wouldn’t?” 

Soon Allura was left alone in the training room, in the same spot she had been standing in for the entire duration of… whatever that was. 

After a few moments she sighed and shook her head, starting to move forward. She had no idea what had just transpired, or what the word “Disney” was supposed to mean, but they had more important things to worry about. She decided to, as Lance had so enthusiastically sung, “let it go” for now.

 

2

If that had been the only incident, Allura was sure that she would have forgotten about it completely. Indeed, she almost had, until a similar incident occurred not even two days later.

Allura, Lance, and Pidge were sitting in the common area after dinner. Keith and Shiro had gone off sparring with each other (again), and Hunk was attempting to show Coran, “What edible food looks like for humans.” This was not Hunk’s first attempt at this mission (Coran was insistent that his food was plenty edible and consisting of all the needed nutrients a defender of the universe could want), and no one expected to see them for several more hours.

Pidge was sitting on the couch, typing away on her computer, and Allura was watching the mice practice their newest routine. Lance was next to Pidge, attempting to convince Pidge to let him on her computer, though with little success.

“C’mon Pidge, I haven’t been able to update my Facebook status in like, _months_.”

“Lance, for the last time, _you cannot access Earth social media from space_.”

“If anyone could do it, it’s you, Pidge-Podge,” Lance said, ruffling up her hair. 

Pidge slapped his hand away. “Lance, I swear, if you call me that one more time...”

“You’ll what? You wouldn’t do anything to me, your favorite Lance! You like me too much, Pidge-ster, Pidge-erino, Pidge-meister, Pidge-y-kins…”

It was at this moment that Pidge seemed to reach her limit, and Lance fell to the floor with a yelp, literally shocked, as Pidge’s bayard appeared in her hand and stabbed him seemly out of nowhere.

“Pidge, why?” Lance groaned from the floor, clutching the side Pidge had stabbed.

“Go bother Allura,” Pidge said, not even looking up from her computer.

Seeming to suddenly remember that Allura was there, Lance sat up quickly. Too quickly, if the groan he tried (and failed) to stifle was any indication.

“Heeyy, Princess,” Lance said, cocking one of his signature grins (though a bit more strained than usual). “How long have you been there?”

“Lance, I was in the room when you walked in. Remember? You came up to me and said,” Allura gave her best Lance-impersonation-voice here, “‘Princess, you must be an alien, cause you’re out of this world.’”

“Really, Lance?” Pidge said, glancing at Lance but still typing away. “That was the best you could come up with?”

“Well it’s true!” Lance protested. “And anyway, the princess liked it!”

“Why do you call her princess all the time?” Pidge asked. “Even if she used to be a princess, she’s not much of one anymore, and if she was, she still wouldn’t be our princess.”

Allura tried to ignore the quick pain in her chest at those words.

“Look Pidge, I’ll put this in simple terms that even you can understand,” Lance said, sitting up, putting a serious look on his face. Pidge must have sensed something in his tone because she even stopped typing and looked up from her computer.

Lance held up one finger. “If you wear a dress…” He pointed at Allura’s outfit, the dress she most often wore. “And you have an animal sidekick…” He then pointed with his other hand at her mice, who were watching curiously. “You’re a princess!” he said conclusively. 

At this Lance turned his fingers into finger guns and pointed both at Allura, with a wide grin on his face.

There was silence for about five seconds. And then Pidge took out her bayard and shocked Lance again.

While Lance groaned on the floor Allura turned to Pidge. “Is that really how royalty is determined on your planet?” she asked, slightly worried for the state of a monarchy with such easy requirements.

“Nope,” Pidge replied, getting back to her computer. “That’s just a Disney thing.”

“What’s a…” Allura was asking, but before she could finish her question Lance was moaning again.

“Pidge, why?” Lance reached out a hand dramatically towards Pidge.

“Suffer,” Pidge replied in a flat, unconcerned voice.

It was at this moment that Hunk and Coran came in through the doors, food-less, because apparently, “This man couldn’t make a normal meal to save his life!” Shiro and Keith appeared not long after, as Coran and Hunk argued over their different cooking styles, Lance joining in to back up Hunk. This turned into a full group discussion (i.e.: argument) on when tentacles were acceptable in meals, and Allura did not get a chance to ask her question again.

She didn’t forget about it this time though, and as she later left for her chambers to sleep, she wondered to herself if it was worth it to bring it up again. She decided to leave it alone for now, unless it popped up again.

 

3

She didn’t have to wait long.

It was happened again during the next pre-mission meeting. Allura entered the room, pleased to see that everyone had made it there on time (Lance often appeared last, and when reprimanded, would usually reply with something along the lines of “The party don’t start till I walk in”). 

“Alright Paladins,” Allura said as she clapped her hands together, walking towards the front of the room. Everyone’s conversations petered off and all of them turned to face her. “I’m glad to see you all here on time.” There was a pointed look at Lance here, which he responded to with an affronted expression. “I don’t need to tell you how important this mission is going to be. Now, let’s get down to business.”

What Allura expected to happen was to have the paladins listen attentively as she explained the mission objective. What she did not expect to happen was for Hunk to say, in a singing voice, “To defeat…”

And before Allura could respond Lance and Pidge yelled at the same time, “The Huns!”

All three burst into laughter. Shiro was smiling and shaking his head in amusement. Keith sighed and rolled his eyes. Coran, at least, seemed to be as confused as Allura as they glanced at each other.

“Nice one, Hunk!” Lance cried out proudly, giving Hunk a high-five which he returned with a small smile. 

“Yeah, well, it was right there…” Hunk replied almost sheepishly, but still chuckling to himself.

“Er, paladins, I’m not sure who these ‘Huns’ are, but we’re working on defeating Zarkon right now,” Coran said, looking at Allura as if she might have answers. She shook her head, as lost as he was. “If they are a threat though, perhaps you should inform us about them…?”

This seemed to set the trio off, who laughed even louder. Keith groaned and rolled his eyes with more force this time. It was a wonder he didn’t strain his eyes.

Shiro turned to Coran, smiling. “It’s alright Coran. The Huns were only ever an Earth threat, and even then they haven’t been a problem for hundreds of years. These three,” and he tried to give the trio a stern look but there was still clear amusement in his eyes, “were just making a Disney reference.” 

“Now,” he continued, this time succeeding in making himself appear serious, to which the three responded to by sitting up and letting their laughter die down, “If we could get back to the mission at hand?”

Allura really, really wanted to stop and ask for clarification this time, but this mission was actually important. She inwardly sighed, and resigned herself to asking about it at the next opportunity as she explained what was to be required of each the paladins for the upcoming mission.

“At least I’m not the only one who is confused,” she thought to herself. “If Coran is doesn’t understand either, then this has to be an Earthling thing.”

 

4

The mission was a success. The goal was to free prisoners from a Galra battlecruiser, which the team succeeded in doing with zero causalities. Injuries were minor too. Apart from some scrapes and bruises, the only one to sustain any major damage was Keith, who had twisted his ankle after, of all things, jumping two stories down onto a Galran soldier, into order to, in Keith’s words, “gain the element of surprise.”

Allura had shaken her head, and after the mission reminded him, for what felt like the hundredth time, that being the red paladin meant following one’s instincts, not “being stupidly reckless!”

Keith had winced at those words. “Sorry Princess. I’ll try not to do that again. But you don’t have to lecture me. I already heard it from Shiro.” He paused. “And Lance.” He paused again. “And Hunk and Pidge too. Really, everyone has given me the speech but Coran…”

It was then that Coran rounded the corner and spotted the two of them. “Keith! Now my boy, I know what it’s like to feel young and invincible, but you need to remember to take your own safety into account! Why, I remember once when I was a lad…”

As Coran continued on Keith looked over at Allura. “Never mind,” he mouthed.

After a quick medical examination it was determined that, while his ankle was not injured too badly, it would be better to send him into a healing pod for an hour to fix it up, rather than have him hobbling around for weeks, likely making it worse. Keith put up a bit of protest, saying that he was fine, but when Shiro mentioned that he would not be allowed to do any training until his ankle was fixed he quickly agreed to go in the pod.

Keith was placed in the pod, and everyone dispersed to clean up after the mission. One hour later they all met by Keith’s pod. It was an unspoken agreement that whenever possible everyone would be present for people being released from the pods. It reassured the people outside the pods that their injured teammate was recovered, and it let the person being released know of the current situation and what was going on quickly. It was just nice to know that everyone was safe, especially after some of the rougher missions.

Keith’s pod opened up and he staggered forward, seemingly about to fall. Lance, who happened to be the closest, stepped forward quickly to catch him.

“Well hello there Sleeping Beauty,” Lance said in a joking tone as he held Keith.

Keith groaned and pushed Lance back as soon as he found his balance. “Knock it off Lance. I was healing, not sleeping.” 

“Yeah, besides, if anyone is Sleeping Beauty it’s Allura,” Pidge pointed out.

Lance froze at this. A look of realization mixed with horror slowly dawned over his face. “Nooooo… ohmygosh you’re right! How could I miss that! I had the opportunity for the perfect pick-up line and I missed it!”

“Her name even sounds like Aurora,” Pidge added, rubbing salt into the wound.

Lance groaned and buried his face in his hands, muttering to himself, “Why, why, why…”

“Would this happen to be another ‘Disney’ thing?” Allura asked, looking between them.

“Yep,” Hunk replied. He moved over to Keith. “Your ankle feeling better?” he asked.

Keith took a few experimental steps. “Yep, good as new.” Everyone smiled in relief.

Everyone but Lance, who now cried out, “I could have kissed her awake and everything!”

Allura looked at Lance and spoke in a steady tone, “Lance, if you are referring to the first time we met, I can assure you, if you had tried to kiss me, you would have found yourself in pain quite a lot worse than just a sore ear.”

Lance sobered up at this. “Erm, yeah, probably for the best then.”

“Alright team,” Shiro said, stepping towards Keith and placing an arm on his shoulder. “Let’s go figure out what’s best to do for the released prisoners.”

They were already walking out the room before Allura realized that she had yet again failed to figure out what this “Disney thing” actually was.

 

5

The prisoners were brought back to their home planets with a minimal amount of fuss. Allura was relieved. While it was nice having others on board, she had gotten used to their little make-shift family being the only ones around.

A few days after the last of them had been returned found the team in the training room, sparring in pairs. Keith and Lance were up currently, with Hunk and Pidge taking a break and watching them. Allura was there observing too, sometimes shouting out directions or advice. Coran was working on some repairs around the ship, and Shiro was currently on his own against one of the gladiator bots.

“Lance, watch your footing,” Allura called out to sparring pair as they circled each other. Both were fighting hand-to-hand in this match

“Got it Princess!” Lance called back. He leapt forward to try and land a blow on Keith, but at the last moment Keith jumped to the right out of reach. 

“Nice dodge, Keith,” Lance said, turning face him again. 

“Thanks Lance,” Keith replied. This time he was the one to move forward to attack Lance, but Lance did a backflip of all things and all Keith hit was air. 

“Woah, cool,” Keith said wide-eyed. He didn’t seem to realize that he had spoken. Then shaking his head he rushed forward to meet Lance again.

Allura was proud as she watched them. The two didn’t always have the best relationship, so it was good to see such a nice moment between the two.

Pidge suddenly spoke. “I can see what’s happening.”

Hunk looked at her. “What?”

“And they don’t have a clue,” she continued.

“Who?”

“They’ll fall in love and here’s the bottom line: our trio’s down to two.”

Hunks eyes widened in realization. “Oh,” he said with understanding, chuckling.

“Pidge, what are you talking about?” Allura asked confused. Sure Lance and Keith had been getting closer, but not that close. Right?

“The sweet caress of twilight,” Pidge continued on. “There’s magic in the air. And with all this romantic atmosphere…” she and Hunk each took a deep breath at the same time.

“Disaster’s in the air!” they both yelled, so loud that Lance and Keith stopped their match, and even Shiro looked up from across the room (only to get hit in the side by the bot before ending the training sequence).

“What is going on?!” Allura was just about on the point of yelling. 

“These two are being dorks, that’s what,” Lance said coming over. “Keith and I are not Simba and Nala!” 

“I call Simba!” Keith, who had come over too, said suddenly. Lance looked at him shocked.

“Uh, excuse you, I’m obviously Simba.”

“Please,” Keith scoffed, almost believably serious but a small twitch of his lips gave him away. “You’re obviously that crazy hyena.”

“You mean Ed?!” Lance cried out. “Oh, you take that back, you…” and he leapt forward toward Keith, who dodged with the same move he used earlier. 

“Does this mean I’m Pumbaa?” Hunk asked, musing. “I can live with that.”

“You make a better Pumbaa than I a Timon,” said Pidge. “But that perfect moment required some sacrifices.”

“Paladins,” Shiro said coming over, in his no-nonsense voice. One hand was rubbing his side and he was wincing. “We can talk about Disney all we want later. For now let’s refocus back on training.”

And as the paladins moved to follow Shiro’s orders Allura decided that she had had quite enough.

“That is it!” She yelled out so loudly that everyone immediately froze. “Someone, right now, is going to explain just what this ‘Disney’ is! I’m quite sick of you all talking about it and not explaining!”

“I, too, would like to understand,” Coran said, entering the room. “It seems to come up quite a bit, and neither the princess or I quite ‘get it,’ as you Earthlings say.”

The five paladins all looked at each other.

“Huh,” Lance said. “I hadn’t realized we talked about Disney so much.”

“Seriously?” Allura said, looking at him. “Lance, it’s almost always you.” 

Lance winced. “Oops.” 

“Such a fanboy,” Pidge muttered. Lance glared at her.

Shiro stepped forward. “Princess, Coran, I’m sorry if we have seemed confusing. Disney is something from back on Earth. If you’d like, after we finish up this session, we can meet in the common area and explain ourselves?”

Allura hesitated, and then nodded her head. “That would be acceptable.” She looked across their faces. “But I will expect a thorough explanation.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Pidge spoke up. “With the amount of Disney nerds on this ship, you’ll get one.”

Allura didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried to see all five of them nodding their heads to Pidge’s words.

 

+1

“So,” Lance began about an hour later, as all seven of them sat comfortably around the couches. “I should probably start, as I’m the resident Disney expert.”

“Debatable,” Pidge immediately interjected.

“Uh, who among us spent hours every day for most of their lives babysitting younger siblings and nieces and nephews armed with nothing but a TV and Disney DVDs?” Lance shot back at her. 

“Stay focused,” Shiro input.

“Sorry,” both Lance and Pidge said at the same time.

“Anyway,” Lance continued on. “It all started with a mouse.”

“A mouse?” Allura asked, glancing down at the four who were curled up in her lap.

“Yeah, a mouse. But like, a talking mouse, who wore pants and stuff. His name was Mickey Mouse, and he went on adventures with his friends, a talking duck, Donald, a talking dog, Goofy, and his own dog Pluto, who couldn’t talk for some reason even if Goofy could…”

“Are… are talking animals common on your planet?” Allura asked hesitantly.

“What?” Lance asked confused. “No, no, no. You see, Mickey and his friends aren’t real. They were created by this guy named Walt Disney, as like cartoons for kids.”

“Cartoons are a type of animation, which is like moving pictures that tell a story,” Hunk helpfully added in. “Like a movie. Wait, do Alteans have movies?”

“We do indeed Number Two,” Coran added. “Why, I was even in a few in my youth! Though I don’t know about this animation business.”

“Anyway,” Lance spoke up again. “Walt Disney made a bunch of cartoons with Mickey Mouse and other creatures, and eventually made the first full-length animated movie in color, which was a big deal when it happened. And then they kept making more movies.”

“They had a bit of a rocky history,” Pidge put in. “Some of their movies were more successful than others. But decades, erm, like, tens of decaphebs later, they started to really do well, and now it’s a household name. Basically every kid grew up watching Disney movies.”

“So…” Allura spoke up, trying to put together this information. “Disney is a person who made entertainment movies for children, which you all watched as children, which is how you know him?”

“Well, yes, but,” Shiro spoke up here, “Disney isn’t just the person anymore. It’s now the name of the company that makes the movies.”

“And they aren’t just for kids!” Lance added. “Disney’s success lies in the fact that their films cater to children as well as their parents. It’s fun for the whole family!” he added with the passion that comes from arguing an often-made point.

“So whenever you’ve mentioned Disney before, you were referencing different movies?”

“Basically, yeah,” all of the paladins nodded along with Lance here. 

“Alright,” Allura said. “I think I understand it now. How about you, Coran?”

“Honestly princess, I’m still confused as to why one dog could talk and one couldn’t,” Coran admitted.

“You and me both Coran,” Lance sighed.

“Does that clear it up?” Shiro asked. “The Disney thing, I mean, not the dog thing.”

“It does Shiro, thank you,” Allura said. “Though I admit that I am now a little curious to see one of these ‘Disney movies.’”

“If we were on Earth I’d just pull up Netflix and we could show you,” Lance said. He sighed sadly. “But we’re in space, millions of light-years away from any Earth movies, Disney or otherwise, so I don’t think that’ll be possible.”

“Weeellllll…” Pidge spoke up, drawing out the word as the others turned to look at her. “That may not be exactly true…”

“Pidge,” Lance said intensely, staring at her. “Pidge. Pidge, don’t mess with me right now. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Lance was leaning in his seat towards Pidge, hope dawning over his features.

“If you think I’m saying that I have all of the Disney vault stored on my computer, then yes that’s what I’m saying,” Pidge said matter-of-factly, pushing up her glasses.

Lance let out a whoop of joy and jumped out of his seat. “Dios mío, that’s better than what I thought! The whole vault? Every movie?? How???”

“Every animated one at least,” Pidge amended. “I have some live-action, but I really prefer the animated stuff mostly. And I told you you weren’t the biggest Disney expert on the ship.”

“Oh Pidge, you wonderful Disney nerd you! I could kiss you!” Lance cried out. Allura looked around at the other paladins and saw that, while not jumping around like Lance was, each had smiles on their faces. Hunk even looked like he was close to tears.

“And I could shock you with my bayard again,” Pidge replied casually. Lance didn’t even seem to register the threat, instead turning to Shiro.

“Shiro! Shiro, we need to have a movie night! Disney marathon! Every movie!”

Shiro chuckled. “Lance, I don’t think even you want to watch fifty plus Disney movies in a row.”

“You don’t know my life,” Lance replied back.

“How about,” Hunk suggested, “if we watch one Disney movie per night? Like once a week or something?”

“Yes!” Lance cried out. “Hunk, you’re a genius! Please, Shiro?” 

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Shiro said. “Could be good for morale.” He paused to think, then kept going. “Or bonding. And it would help Coran and Allura understand us better, since we seem to bring it up so often.”

“Please,” Keith scoffed. “Don’t give us excuses. You’re just as big of a Disney nerd as the rest of them.”

“Be that as it may,” Shiro continued on gracefully, “I don’t have a problem against it. Allura, what do you think?”

Allura smiled. “Yes, I would love to get to experience something that seems to be so important to your Earth culture.”

“And I as well,” Coran added. “I want to see a talking mouse!”

“That brings up a good question,” Hunk put in. “Which ones do we start with? I mean, we could go in order, but some of the best movies are like, past number 40.”

“Why don’t we each show them our favorite movie?” Lance asked. Everyone looked at him.

“That… is actually a good idea, Lance,” Keith said in a surprised tone of voice. 

“Pish, I know, I have those sometimes,” Lance replied back, crossing his arms and leaning back in an attempt to look casual, but the hint of red on his cheeks from the praise gave him away.

“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Pidge put in. “All five of us can write our favorite movie down on paper. Once a week on movie night we’ll draw one and watch it. I’ll work on making a theater system so we can all watch comfortably. Sound good?” Everyone nodded. “Alright, good. I’ll get started then.”

Pidge then left to go get her computer, and Hunk went with her to help with the system. Lance and Keith set off to solve the problem of where to find paper in a high-tech alien spaceship. And Shiro trailed after to discreetly make sure this wasn’t a situation where they went off by themselves only to try and kill each other five minutes later (It had happened before. A lot).

“Well Princess,” Coran spoke up once the others had left, “looks like we’re going to be having some educational, and entertaining, times ahead of us.”

“Seems like it Coran,” Allura replied with a smile. “Should be interesting, at the very least.”

The future would prove both of them to be correct.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Hunk's movie


	2. The Lion King

It took Pidge and Hunk a week to get their theater set up.

“It would have been quicker,” Pidge gripped, “if _someone_ didn’t keep sending ships to attack us every five minutes!”

The others looked at each other. “Are… are you talking about Zarkon?” Allura asked hesitantly.

“Pidge, you know he can’t hear you, right?” Hunk looked at her with worry.

“I know!” Pidge snapped. “I just find it really inconsiderate, that’s all.”

All of the five paladins, plus Coran, Allura, and the mice, were gathered in the make-shift theater room. On one wall was a large Pidge-designed TV, and couches and chairs had been gathered around to face it in a U shape. Pidge had her laptop synced with the TV to display the movie, and there was a sound system designed by Hunk whose boxes were scattered around “to create the full surround-sound experience!”

“Alright, so who’s going to draw the first one?” Lance asked. “Perhaps the fairest one of all?” he added on, looking at Allura, who rolled her eyes at him (a habit she had picked up from Keith).

“I figured you would’ve said yourself,” Keith himself added, finding a seat on a couch.

“Aww, you think I’m fair?” Lance said teasingly at Keith, standing near Pidge, who was setting up her computer.

“Fairly annoying,” Keith shot back immediately from his seat.

“Settle down, cadets,” Shiro sighed. This was perhaps the 20th Lance/Keith argument he had split up. That day. That Allura had counted. 

Shiro continued, “But, to be fair (he stressed that word just enough that the others were unsure if it was a pun or not), why don’t we let Coran or Allura draw this first movie.”

“You can go first, Princess,” Coran said settling himself on one of the large, single chairs. “I can choose the next one.”

“Very well,” Allura replied. She walked over to where Pidge was set up. Pidge held up a cup which contained scraps of paper each paladin had written their favorite Disney movie on. Lance and Keith had actually succeeded in their mission to find paper. If you asked Lance it was a bold and daring adventure, full of many astounding feats and acts of heroism. 

If you asked Keith they just tore a page from the notebook they found in Pidge’s backpack.

Allura reached into the cup and pulled out the first scrap of paper she touched and looked at it, everyone staring at her in anticipation. 

“I can't read this,” she said after a moment.

"Oops, sorry, it's in English," Pidge said, holding our her hand for the paper, which Allura handed over. "The Lion King," Pidge read aloud.

“Ah heck yeah! Awesome!” Lance pumped his fist in the air.

Keith sighed at him. “Figures your movie would get chosen first.” 

“Uh, no, Keith, that happens to not be my movie, I just appreciate the classics!”

“It’s mine,” Hunk supplied, raising his hand. “And it actually works out nicely; I think we’ve made a couple of references to this one in the past.”

“What does it matter, it’s in the past?” Lance and, surprisingly, Shiro said at the same time. Lance looked at Shiro in awe before slowly offering him a high-five, which Shiro returned with a smile before finding his own seat on a couch. 

“While Pidge starts the movie, would anyone like to tell us what it’s about?” Allura asked, going to sit down in the other big chair, walking past Lance who looked like he was about to silently explode. Coran was seated across from her on the other side of the U. Keith was sitting in the corner of a couch next to Hunk. Shiro sat on the other couch next to Allura.

“Sure thing, Princess,” Lance said, taking a seat on the floor, leaning against Hunk’s legs. “It’s about…” he paused for a moment. “Huh. This is harder than I thought. Okay, so there’s this group of lions…”

“Set amid the majestic beauty of the Serengeti, Disney’s epic coming-of-age saga tells of the love between a proud lion ruler, Mufasa, and his son Simba – a naïve and curious cub who ‘just can’t wait to be king.’ Out from the shadows prowl Simba’s envious Uncle Scar and his hyena henchmen. Their scheming for the throne leads to tragedy… and Simba’s exile from the kingdom he should rightfully rule. Befriended by the warmhearted warthog Pumbaa and his manic meerkat companion, Timon, Simba forgets his regal responsibilities and adopts the carefree style of ‘Hakuna Matata.’ But can Rafiki, a wise mystic baboon, help Simba reclaim his true destiny in the ‘circle of life?’”

Everyone stared open mouthed at Pidge as she finished speaking. 

“What?” she asked innocently. “It’s the synopsis on one of the DVD covers. I’ve got it pulled up right here.” She gestured at her computer screen.

Everyone sighed, relieved. “Jeez, Pidge, way make me question everything I’ve ever known,” Lance gripped.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Pidge replied, typing away as she finalized the movie’s set-up.

“I recognize lions,” Allura said after a moment of thought. “But I’m not sure what some of those other… animals?... are.”

“Yes, I would like to know what exactly a ‘Serengeti’ is,” Coran added.

“The Serengeti is a place in Africa, a continent on Earth,” Shiro explained. “It’s known for its wilderness and jungle. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are no people in this movie, though in real life people do live there.”

“Nope, no people in this film,” Lance agreed. “Just talking, singing animals.”

“Like Mickey Mouse!” Allura exclaimed, seeing a connection.

“Exactly, Princess!” Lance beamed proudly at her.

“Well, close,” Hunk amended. “Mickey Mouse is basically a person who’s mouse-shaped. I mean, he acts entirely like a human. The animals in this movie, while they talk, are still supposed to be animals, doing things that animals do. For the most part…”

“And don’t worry about the different animal names,” Shiro put in. “It’s not super important to know, and you’ll be able to tell the different types apart. We can always fill them in as the movie goes on.”

Pidge spoke up as she made her way over to the last empty spot, on the couch by Shiro. “And if anything is too confusing for our resident Alteans, just speak up. I can pause it if we need to explain some things.” She held up a small remote-like device she had made for this. “I’m pretty sure most of this movie is self-explanatory, but I’m coming from a background of Earth culture, so I may be biased and miss something.”

“We’ll let you know if we need clarification on anything,” Allura reassured her, Coran nodding along.

“Alright then nerds, movie’s ready. Y’all ready for this?” Pidge called out.

Everyone let their agreement known, some more enthusiastically than others (Keith simply nodded once, Lance cried out “Woo!” at the top of his lungs).

“Okay then, here we go!” Pidge pushed a button, and a black and white counter appeared on the screen and started counting down from ten.

“Isn’t that a little too old-fashioned for this movie?” Lance asked aloud.

“It’s for aesthetic purposes, now shut up Lance, it’s starting” Pidge hissed back as the counter reached zero.

Allura stared at the screen, excited. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see first; perhaps some lions? What she saw instead was the screen to turning blue and displaying an image of a night sky with a couple stars.

As she watched soft music played, and the screen seemed to tilt downwards, facing some land and a river. But she didn’t have long to look at it, as suddenly a castle was on screen, with bursts of color appearing around it. A glittering arc appeared over the castle, before what seemed to be words flashed on the screen and it all went black. 

“Was that it?” she asked dumfounded. “There weren’t even any lions!” 

“I must say, I expected this movie to be longer than the space of a few ticks!” Coran added.

The paladins looked at each other confused for a moment, before Pidge quickly paused the movie, keeping the screen black.

“Okay, see, that’s one of those culture things I was talking about earlier,” she said. “I didn’t even think about needing to explain the logo.”

“It’s not part of the movie,” Shiro added. “At least, not really. Not part of the main story anyway. It’s just Disney’s logo – their way of saying that they are the ones who made the movie.”

"Why don’t they just say that then,” Allura asked.

“They did, actually.” Pidge pushed another button on her remote and the screen seemed to move backwards. “See, right there it says ‘Walt Disney Picture.’ Sorry it’s not in Altean, I’ve still got a way to go through that language training program of death before I know enough for subtitles.”

Lance looked up at Hunk. “Language training program of death?” he mouthed.

Hunk shrugged back, looking at Pidge a bit concerned.

“Will there be any more of these logos?” Allura continued on. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Pidge responded. “Pretty sure the movie starts immediately after. And here. We. Go!” she pushed the button on her device dramatically.

Of course not even a few seconds later there were more words on the screen.

“Sorry, sorry!” Pidge said. “It’s just the same thing though – ‘Walt Disney Pictures presents.’”

“Why would you say the same thing twice?” Allura asked. Coran looked a bit confused as well.

In an instant both jumped in their seats as a loud voice suddenly started yelling and the screen was covered in the red of a rising sun.

“What the -!” Allura cried out.

“Nope, nope!” Lance quickly said, waving his hands around at Pidge, who had been reaching for her remote. “No more pausing. Let’s make it through the first song at least, then you can ask questions if needed.”

Allura nodded in agreement and put her attention back on the screen. A voice was chanting in a language the translators apparently couldn’t translate. Various animals she didn’t recognize appeared and disappeared on the screen before she could get a good look at them. A giant waterfall, mountain, rivers, all appeared after one another. Allura was shocked at how beautiful it all appeared. Was this how all of Earth was, she wondered.

She quickly stopped that train of thought as she could now understand the singing. She wasn’t sure what the message had to do with the animals, but it was a nice sentiment, and coupled with the bright colors and animals she was a little amazed. 

Suddenly an odd-shaped mountain appeared in view, getting closer, and she was able to recognize the figure on it as a lion. She watched as different animals approached it, bowing. Then suddenly more lions were on screen, and Allura was “awwing” because there was a little lion cub! One of the strange animals did some odd thing with the cub involving fruit and dirt, before carrying it to the front of the mountain and holding it up.

Allura was a little concerned for the cub, but it seemed this was supposed to happen, as the animals below began making a lot of seemingly-excited noises, and a beam of light fell from the sky, hitting the cub. The other animals below bowed down towards it. The beam of light, coupled with the singing still going on passionately with the loud music… even though Allura wasn’t sure what was happening, she could tell it was important.

Suddenly with a thud the screen went black again, with more words in red appearing on the screen.

“The Lion King,” Lance read aloud.

Pidge hit the paused it. “Alright, so you got all that?”

Coran and Allura looked at each other from across the seating area.

“Umm…” Allura said.

“Err...” Coran helpfully added.

Pidge sighed. “Alright, let’s hear your questions. But I actually want to, you know, watch the rest of the movie, so there might be some stuff we don’t get into detail here.”

“And you don’t need to ask questions about who certain characters are or anything now,” Lance added. “That will be explained as the movie goes on.”

“Okay, well, we saw the lions,” Allura started. Pidge and the others nodded. “Do we need to know what those other animals are?”

“Not really,” Shiro supplied. “All you really need to know for now is that lions are at the top of the food chain, meaning that they eat the other animals here, and in this movie they’re basically the royalty of where they live.”

“If lions eat those other animals, then why were the other animals all gathered so close to something that might eat them?” Coran asked.

The paladins looked at each other.

“I… I’m not sure,” Keith said, pondering. “I never really thought about it before, but yeah, why would they?”

“…It’s a special day?” Hunk suggested.

The other four looked at each other and shrugged, as if that was the best answer they were going to get.

“Moving on,” Lance said. “Anything else?”

“What was that chanting saying?” Allura asked, Coran nodding along looking like he had been curious too. “The translators weren’t picking it up.”

“It’s Swahili, I think,” Hunk said. “I’m not sure what it’s saying.”

“‘Here comes a lion, oh yes it’s a lion,’” Keith answered. “It basically repeats that over and over. And it’s Zulu, actually.”

The four other paladins stared at him, mouths open in shock.

“What?” he said, a bit defensive. 

The silent, shocked stares continued for about another ten awkward seconds. Keith scowled and crossed his arms, turning to look at Allura. “Anything else you have questions on before we continue?”

Allura shook her head. She wasn’t sure what exactly Keith had said to cause that type of reaction, but she was grateful for his explanation all the same. “No, I think that’s it, Keith. Coran, are you satisfied as well?”

“Yes, Princess. I‘m ready to resume the movie.”

“Pidge…?” Allura asked, looking over at the smaller girl, who, along with Lance, Hunk, and Shiro, hadn’t stopped looking at Keith. 

“It’s like my entire world has been flipped on its axis,” Pidge said quietly to herself.

“First Pidge’s synopsis thing, now this,” Lance spoke just as quietly. “I don’t know how much more of these shocks my poor heart can take.”

“Oh for Pete’s sake – can we please get back to the movie already?” Keith snapped at them, huffing.

This seemed to shake them from their stupor, and everyone turned back to face the screen as Pidge started it again.

Allura watch as a creature she recognized as a mouse came on screen (though not as colorful as her own mice, two of whom were in her lap, the other two on each shoulder). When a giant paw came down right upon it Allura gave a little gasp, and all of her mice let out shrill squeaks and bolted under the couch. Allura was about to reach down and reassure them, but suddenly a dark lion with a black mane was speaking with a, frankly, quite striking voice.

“Quiznacking Scar,” Lance grumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Allura to hear.

“Still not using the word right,” Keith muttered back.

“Boys,” Shiro warned. The two quieted down immediately.

Allura watched as a bird-like creature showed up and began an argument with the lion (Scar, apparently), which escalated to the bird, (Zazu? She think she heard that) winding up in Scar’s mouth.

But before Allura had a chance to be worried another lion was showing up, this one bigger, golden-colored, with a red mane. And if Allura had thought that the first lion had a rich voice, well, this voice was even more impressive.

“Shiro, is that what Black sounds like to you?” Pidge asked slyly.

“Oh my gosh, Black is totally Mufasa!” Lance cried out at his revelation.

“The coloring makes him look more like Number Two’s lion to me,” Coran said, stoking his mustache and watching the lions on screen move about each other.

“Yes, I have Mufasa!” Hunk pumped his fist in the air.

Keith looked over. “You do realize what happened to Mufa-”

But before he could get out any more Lance cried “Keith!” and leapt up to slap his hand over the red paladin’s mouth. “No spoilers!” he hissed at him.

Keith slapped his hand away, but didn’t make a move to speak again. Seeming satisfied Lance settled back down in his spot.

Allura had barely paid attention to the exchange, keeping her attention on the lions on screen, who had been revealed to be brothers. It was fascinating to watch their interactions, though she was liking this “Scar” fellow less and less as they kept talking. Something about him just rubbed her the wrong way.

“Something about this Scar fellow just rubs me the wrong way,” Coran spoke aloud.

Huh. At least she wasn’t the only one.

“You and me both, Coran,” Lance also supplied.

They all sat in relative silence as the scene changed, first showing some nice-looking backgrounds, then the same creature which had performed that ceremony before drawing what looked like to be the same lion cub on the inside of a tree. 

Now a lion cub who looked older than the previous one was prodding who Allura assumed to be his parents. 

“Is that the same cub as before?” Allura asked to make sure.

“Yep,” Pidge replied. “Some time had passed, so he’s older now.”

The cub ( _Simba_ , she thought, trying to get the names of these characters down) managed to get his father up in a way that reminded her of when she was small enough to still pester her parents in a similar manner.

The king lion ( _Mufasa_ ) sat with Simba, talking as the sun broke over the horizon. The conversation between the two lions reminded her of a similar conversation she had with her father about ruling when she was younger. And, Allura thought as she looked over at Coran, who was smiling softly but sadly, she apparently wasn’t the only one to make connections between her father and Mufasa.

“He’s quite wise,” Coran commented softly as he caught Allura looking at him, trying to discreetly wipe his eyes.

“I agree Coran. I always forget just how amazing a king he is,” Hunk responded back, who also, Allura noticed as she looked closer at Hunk, seemed to have a bit of tears in his eyes.

“Circle of life speech,” Lance sighed, patting Hunk’s knee. “Gets us every time.”

The mood changed as the lions participated in a “pouncing lesson,” managing to successfully land on Zazu. Mufasa left soon after, to deal with whatever hyenas were, and the scene changed back to the same mountain as before, where Scar paced around.

“This guy again,” Lance muttered. Allura couldn’t help but share the sentiment.

As Simba approached and talked with Scar, and Scar started telling him about whatever an “elephant graveyard” was, Allura got a strange feeling.

When Simba ran off screen she asked, “Does anyone else feel like Scar manipulated Simba just then?”

The others nodded in agreement. “Sure did,” Lance stated. 

“He’s a jerk, but he’s smart,” Pidge added.

Allura chuckled a bit as Simba and another cub (Nala, she heard Simba say) were bathed by their mothers, and a bit more as Simba “stealthily” convinced his mother to let him and Nala go off, though with Zazu as an extra addition.

As the two cubs walked and conspired with each other, Allura heard Keith ask, “Okay, but who exactly is Nala’s dad? We only see Scar and Mufasa, and both are related to Simba, so…”

“Keith,” Lance interrupted, looking up at Keith intensely. “Listen to me really closely. Don’t ever ask that again. There’s no good answer.”

“No, but wait,” Hunk said, brows starting to furrow in confusion. “Does that mean…?” 

“Hunk,” Pidge stopped him. “It’s best not to think about it. Trust me. Matt and I have debated for hours over this, and there’s no satisfying answer. It’s best to ignore it.”

Allura had only been half-listening to the conversation, so she wasn’t fully sure what they were talking about. She was too distracted by the music starting an up-beat tempo, and as she watched the music suddenly surged, Simba pounced, the background changed colors, and the characters started singing.

“Why are they singing?” Coran asked even he started swaying in his seat to the rhythm. 

“Yes, I’m a bit confused too,” Allura added, just barely managing to restrain herself from doing the same. “It’s as if they are having a conversation, but through song?”

“Well, yeah,” Pidge said. “It’s a musical. Sometimes that happens.”

At the Alteans shared looks of confusion Shiro explained, “A musical is where characters sometimes express their thoughts and feelings through song. Often you see it in plays, but a lot of movies, especially Disney ones, do it too, so characters will start singing to express themselves as a way to move the story along.”

“Plus it’s catchy!” Lance interjected, bouncing around and waving his arms with the music unabashedly. Allura couldn’t disagree with that, finding the tune particularly pleasant herself. 

“Oh I just can’t wait to be king!” Lance, Hunk, and Pidge sang at the same time as Simba. Shiro and Keith didn’t speak, but they were smiling and swaying in their seats some, though not nearly as much as the other three.

There were a lot of creatures on screen now, but Allura was too caught up in the song to ask for an explanation on what they were. She was impressed at their balancing ability though, as she watched them stack themselves up. Or she was, until they all fell, leaving Zazu squished under one while the two cubs ran off.

As the two fell down a cliff though Allura started to get worried, which only increased as she got a clear look at what seemed to be a giant skull with huge tusks.

“Is this the… elephant graveyard?” Allura asked hesitantly.

“Yep,” responded Pidge.

“Quiznack,” Coran whispered, eyes wide.

When Zazu returned to reprimand the two cubs and try and get them to leave, Allura couldn’t help but agree that they should get out of there as quickly as possible. She felt validated as three creatures emerged from the giant skull. They were shaped almost like lions, but a little off.

“Hyenas,” Shiro supplied without even needing to be asked. “They eat meat like lions, though they’re more of scavengers. They’re kind of the bad guys in this movie.”

“I think I could have figured out the last bit myself thanks,” Allura said as the three hyenas started circling the Simba and the others.

Shiro looked a bit sheepish. “Sorry.”

Allura waved her hand in an “It’s alright” motion, too engrossed on what was happening to do much more. The cubs and bird started wisely running away as the hyenas were distracted laughing, but Zazu was quickly caught.

And almost boiled alive. Good heavens, this got dark fast.

As Simba and Nala ran from the hyenas Coran and Allura were on the edge of their seats. The two cubs were running for their lives through giant piles of bones. Dark, indeed.

The two were cornered, and even with the intense situation Allura couldn’t help but give out a little laugh as Simba tried to roar. Her laugh quickly turned to a gasp, however, as Mufasa showed up and fought off the hyenas. But as the characters walked off-screen and the camera panned up…

“What!” Allura cried out, causing the paladins to jump. “Scar saw the whole thing and said nothing!?” 

“I agree, Princes,” Coran said, glaring at the screen. “Most appalling behavior indeed.”

“If you think that’s bad…” Keith started to speak, but stopped after a sharp look from Lance. “Never mind.”

Allura felt a little pity for Simba as he was scolded by Mufasa, but not a lot. After all, he had almost gotten himself and Nala killed. Mufasa seemed to understand this, and conveyed how serious that was to Simba, but the two were smiling and playing with each other moments after the point was made.

Allura smiled at the two as they talked under the stars. As the scene started to change to something green the movie suddenly froze.

“Sorry,” Pidge said, holding up her remote, when Allura looked at her. “But I think we may need a minute.” Pidge’s voice wavered a bit as she spoke, and she used one hand to rub at her eye.

Looking around Allura saw that the other paladins were in a similar situation. Hunk and Lance each had tears rolling down their faces but were still trying to comfort each other (with minimal success). Keith and Shiro were a bit more subtle, but Allura could see that their faces were redder than normal and they were blinking fast. Even Coran had tears in his eyes.

When Allura looked at him he gave her a small smile. “Just like Alfor,” he whispered.

Well great, now Allura was tearing up.

A couple minutes later Pidge seemed to deem all of them well enough to continue, and resumed the movie.

The hyenas were back on-screen, and after a minute of their bickering Scar appeared through a veil of green smoke. If Allura had had any doubt from earlier about whether Scar was a bad guy, it was gone now, as he was revealed to know the hyenas and have set them up to kill Simba and Nala.

Allura was practically glowering at the screen as Scar even admitted to wanting to kill Mufasa. So she was very confused when Lance started cheering.

“Yeah!” he called out. “Woo!” At Allura and Coran’s shocked looks he gestured at the screen.

“Just watch,” he said as explanation.

Allura did, just as Scar began to sing. Against her will Allura found herself really liking the song. It was catchy, far catchier than any song sung by a guy like Scar had any right to be.

“Be prepared!” Lance and Pidge sung along with Scar as he paced around onscreen. And as the hyenas and Scar talked they and Hunk quoted along with the movie, Lance and Pidge taking on the hyena’s parts, and Hunk, surprisingly, as Scar.

Hunk explained to Allura as a large number of hyenas started marching, “I’ve been friends with Lance a long time. As such, I have been required take on all sorts of roles to accompany him.”

Scar and the hyenas were raised into the air by lava of all things, and laughed maniacally under the night sky as the screen cut to black.

“Best. Villain song. Ever,” Lance sighed.

“Hmm, debatable,” Pidge replied. But the next scene started, cutting her off from saying more.

As Scar talked with Simba in a canyon Allura wondered how Simba couldn’t see right through his uncle as he spoke in a creepily slick voice. But, she thought to herself, Simba was just a cub, and he didn’t have the added benefit of just listening to Scar sing about wanting to kill him and his dad.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Coran said as Scar sauntered off. Allura couldn’t agree more. 

The camera rose, showing a large herd of creatures grazing in a field.

“Wildebeests,” Shiro spoke up before Allura could even ask. “They’re a prey animal to lions.” 

Allura nodded. Her bad feeling was amplified as the hyenas were shown nearby. She wasn’t sure what they were planning, but as Simba came back on-screen Allura had a gut feeling that he was somehow in danger.

This was confirmed as the music amplified intensely, a massive number of wildebeests ran down the canyon wall, and the camera zoomed in on Simba’s shocked face.

“Run!” Allura shouted at him in her mind. Simba seemed to listen, and turned to run, but the sheer number of wildebeests was astounding, and with those giant canyon walls leaving him nowhere else to go, it seemed that he would quickly be overrun.

Mufasa and Zazu were shown nearby, and as Scar gasped at them that Simba was in danger, Allura quickly figured out Scar’s plan. She had no time to worry about that however, as Simba was shown clearly still in danger. Allura didn’t think that he could last must longer. He climbed a dead-looking tree but it didn’t seem like he could hold on for very long.

Mufasa ran down towards Simba, and Allura was on the edge of her seat, barely breathing. She gasped as Simba was knocked off the tree and sent flailing through the air only to be caught in Mufasa’s mouth. After a stumble Mufasa placed Simba on a ledge, only to get knocked off himself by the stampede. Allura wasn’t sure if she was even breathing at this point.

“Yes!” she cried out as Mufasa jumped out of the herd and onto the canyon wall, climbing his way up. Thank goodness he was safe!

Or was he? Mufasa climbed up the whole wall only to meet Scar at the top of the ledge. Mufasa was clearly struggling, and he begged his brother for help.

Allura and Coran cried out at the same time as Scar sank his claws into Mufasa’s paws. “Long live the king,” he whispered, and then he threw Mufasa off, and Mufasa was falling, and Allura wasn’t sure if she or Simba were screaming “No!” louder.

Simba went down into the canyon, but even as he searched Allura had a bad feeling. And as Mufasa came into view, still and not moving, she knew.

“No,” she whispered.

“Dad?” Simba asked quietly on screen, begging his father to wake up. Allura felt her heart breaking into pieces, shattering as Simba curled up with his father’s body.

She then quickly felt herself seething with range as Scar came into view. Murderer!

And then, and then! Scar acted like it was Simba’s fault, manipulating him just as easily as he manipulated him into the elephant graveyard. Allura almost couldn’t hear Scar convince Simba to “run away and never return” over her blood pounding in her head.

Simba ran, barely escaping the same hyenas from before, running off into a desert. Scar informed the other lions of his and Mufasa’s death, and the expressions of the lions and the monkey creature from the start of the movie matched what Allura felt perfectly.

“Can we pause it again?” Allura asked as the scene changed from the monkey in a tree to Simba lying in the desert. She felt like she needed a moment to compose herself.

Pidge was about to comply, but Lance spoke up, stopping her. “No, we shouldn’t. Trust me, it’s really better if we keep going.” At Allura’s look of disbelief he continued, “I know! It sucks, I know it sucks. But if we stop now we’ll just be sadder for longer, it’s better if we keep going so we can see things get better, and believe me, they do get better.”

Allura figured that made a bit of sense, and nodded her head towards him in agreement. There were some birds surrounding Simba where he lay in the desert now.

Again Shiro answered unprompted by anyone. “Vultures,” he said. “They eat the remains of dead animals.”

“Thank you, Shiro,” Allura answered a bit sarcastically. Shiro didn’t seem to notice and smiled at her.

Two new creatures appeared and chased the vultures off, prey animals apparently, who rescued Simba after a bit of a debate. Finally, Allura thought, someone acknowledged that most animals would not want to be around lions, aka predators that would eat them. 

“You know,” Pidge spoke up. “I still maintain that Hunk is Pumbaa.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment,” Hunk replied firmly.

“You should,” Pidge agreed. “But after thorough consideration, Lance is totally Timon.”

“What!?” cried out Lance. “No way, I thought we agreed I was Simba.”

“Hmm, no, Keith would be Simba,” Pidge said matter-of-factly. “Loner, mostly orphan, runs away from his problems. And you and Hunk are as tight as Timon and Pumbaa.”

“Well I can’t argue with that last point,” Lance grumbled. “But-”

“Will you all be quiet?” Keith hissed at them. “Some of us are trying to watch.”

“Sorry,” the Lance, Pidge, and Hunk whispered, refocusing back on the screen.

After about five seconds Keith spoke again. “I’m totally Simba though.”

“What!?” Lance looked like he wanted to say more, but a warning of “Guys…” from Shiro and he stopped, though still looking annoyed.

Allura watched the screen during their conversation as Timon and Pumbaa talked with Simba. They did remind her a little of the blue and yellow paladins. She wasn’t sure if she agreed with Timon’s statement of “When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world,” though.

“Hakuna Matata,” the characters said, but before Allura could ask for a translation Pumbaa explained that it means “No worries.” And then yet another song started.

“Aww yeah,” Lance said, visibly excited. “Best song, here we go.”

“I though you liked that ‘Be prepared’ one best,” Coran said, looking at him questioningly.

Lance shook his head. “No, no, that’s the best Disney _villain_ song. This is just the best overall song. Well, of the movie. Hey Hunk,” he said looking up at his friend. “If you’ll take Pumbaa’s parts I’ll agree to be Timon for the next like three minutes.”

“Sure thing buddy,” Hunk replied, reaching down and patting him on the shoulder.

The two then proceeded to sing along with the movie, much to Allura’s amusement. As agreed, Hunk took over Pumbaa’s parts and Lance sang Timon’s. 

When Simba started singing too another voice from the room sang along, someone whose singing voice Allura didn’t recognize. Allura looked around the room, startled to see it was Keith singing along. “It means no worries for the rest of your days,” he sang in actually a pretty decent voice.

“Keith, you are not Simba!” Lance cried out at the same time as Pidge took over Timon’s “Yeah, sing it kid!” 

Shiro and Hunk were cracking up. Allura was smiling pretty wide herself.

Looking back the screen she saw the three animals walking on a log over a chasm. But in the space of a few seconds the scene faded, replacing Simba with a larger lion.

“What is happening?” Allura asked concerned.

“It’s alright,” Pidge said reassuringly. “Time’s just passing. Simba’s growing up.”

Allura noted that Simba now looked a lot like his father, though with a less regal demeanor. The song finished, and the scene changed again. Allura took a moment and looked around at everyone in the room, engrossed with the screen, all with smiles on their faces. She realized that this was the happiest she had seen them all together in… maybe ever.

The scene changed back to Simba’s old home. It looked a lot darker than Allura remembered it. Though if Scar was running everything she figured it made some sense.

“Alright, but here’s the real point,” Pidge said. “Scar is totally Zarkon.”

There was silence for about two seconds and then everyone burst out into laughter. 

“Oh my gosh you’re totally right!” Lance wheezed out. “Evil dictator, takes over the whole place, makes things worse for everyone… We’re gonna have to refer to him as Scar from now on, guys. Are we all in agreement on this?”

“Who would be Zazu?” Hunk asked as that character was now on-screen again, apparently trapped in…ribs?

“Coran,” Shiro responded, not hesitating. At the others’ looks he added, “Loyal advisor to the old king, likes to talk, and has orange on his face.”

“I cannot disagree with that,” Coran said thoughtfully, stroking his mustache.

“Paladins, Coran, please, I’m trying to listen,” Allura directed at them. The conversation on-screen seemed like it could be important.

“Sorry,” they all said, and quieted down for a second, only for the paladins to start laughing again as Zazu began singing “It’s a small world after all…” 

At Allura and Coran’s questioning look Shiro said, “Sorry, it’s a Disney reference.”

Allura turned her head, met Coran’s eyes, and both turned and gave Shiro a flat look. He winced. “Sorry. I promise I’ll explain it later, but we should just keep watching; it’s not really important to the story.” The two Alteans looked at each other again, then nodded at Shiro in agreement.

Allura watched silently as the hyenas approached Scar and complained about the lack of food.

Now it was back to Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa, relaxing on some grass, looking at the night sky. They got into a debate about what the stars were (Pumbaa was, Allura was surprised to note, the closest). 

As Simba went off on his own, upset, and plopped down dramatically on some grass, Allura was confused and a bit offended to hear Lance whisper, “Sex.”

“It’s SFX,” Keith whispered back to Allura’s confusion before she had a chance to admonish Lance.

“How the heck do you even know that, Mullet?!” Lance cried out at Keith. “Why do you know the most random things!?”

“Rafiki means friend,” Keith offered back as the monkey appeared on-screen again.

Lance threw his hands up in the air, clearly done. “I feel personally attacked right now.”

Hunk patted him on the back reassuringly.

Pumbaa and Hunk were singing again, a different song than before. As Timon got really into it Hunk and Pidge caught each other’s eyes and mouthed, “Lance,” at each other.

Suddenly a somewhat familiar-looking lion was chasing Pumbaa. Simba appeared out of nowhere to save him though, and fought off the other lion. Only the other lion turned out to be Nala.

“I thought so!” Coran called out. So that’s who the lion reminded Allura of.

Simba and Nala caught up, pouncing around like they were still cubs. The mood was brought down as the stampede was brought up, and soon Timon was scoffing at Simba being called king.

“Wait, Simba never told them who he was?” Coran asked. “I thought they were friends.”

“He should have told them who he was,” Shiro nodding in agreement.

“‘Simba, owning who you are will make you a better lion king,’” Pidge said, deepening her voice to imitate Shiro.

The others chucked a bit. “Well it’s true!” Shiro said defending himself.

“Guys, be quiet, the best song’s coming up!” Lance said, shushing them. 

Allura looked at him. “But I thought you said ‘Hakuna Matata’ was the best song?”

“Well, that’s the best _overall_ song,” Lance said. “This is the best _love_ song.”

Allura threw her hands up in much the same way as Lance had done earlier to Keith.

Timon and Pumbaa started singing, a familiar song.

“Oh!” Allura exclaimed. “This is what Pidge and Hunk were singing that time in the training room!”

“Yep,” Pidge said. “Glad one of our references now makes sense.”

Allura stared at the screen thoughtfully. “Yes, I can see what you were talking about earlier with Lance and Keith.”

“Seriously?” Lance cried out as Keith sunk a bit in his spot, his face turning a bit red.

“I’m joking,” Allura reassured them (she was only half joking). As she started to pay more attention to the song she noted that it was quite nice, and well-sung (after Timon and Pumbaa’s parts ended). She could see why Lance thought it was a good love song.

Not for the first time Allura toke note of just how pretty this movie was, as Simba and Nala ran through fields and fell down hills, soft colors illuminating them.

As Timon and Pumbaa took over the song again Pidge and Hunk sang along. “In short our pal is doooooomed!” they cried out passionately. Both of them reached went down to Lance to wrap their arms around him and sob dramatically. 

“Knock it off guys!” Lance said, pushing them away. “Besides, I thought Keith was Simba.”

“So you admit it!” Keith said triumphantly.

“I… you… no!” Lance said, fumbling over whatever point he was trying to make, while Simba on-screen fumbled over his explanation of why he never returned, which turned into an argument with Nala. Allura had to take Nala’s side in the argument; Simba was being very immature.

“Maybe Lance _would_ be a better fit for Simba,” she thought to herself. She knew better than to say that out loud, however, and spark another argument between the paladins.

Now Rafiki was suddenly there to bring Simba out of his dramatic doldrums. 

“How did he know where to find Simba?” Coran asked curiously.

The paladins looked at each other and shrugged.

“The wind told him?” Hunk suggested half-heartedly.

The others seemed to consider this, and then accepted that this was the best explanation they were going to get.

“Why is he acting so crazy now?” Allura asked as Rafiki danced around and sang a little nonsense song and generally annoyed Simba. “He seemed a lot wiser before.”

“I have a theory for that,” Pidge stated. But as Rafiki said, “You’re Mufasa’s boy,” she added “But it can wait. It’s a little in-depth, and there’s an important bit coming up.”

Soon Simba was looking as his reflection, which morphed into the image of Mufasa. Allura gasped as Mufasa suddenly appeared majestically in the clouds above Simba to encourage him to take responsibility and return home to make things right.

Or in Lance’s words, to give him “the best dang pep talk of all time.”

“Remember who you are.” This time Shiro quoted along with the movie, directing the line towards Keith.

“You’re not my dad!” Keith snapped at him. Shiro gasped and clutched his chest, but his teasing smile gave away that he was clearly only pretending to be offended.

Apparently Mufasa’s “pep talk” worked, as Simba ran off, presumably to go back home. Allura thought it was a little rude that he did not tell his friends what he was doing first, leaving it to the monkey to explain what he had done.

Simba made it back to his home after a very dramatic-looking run, only to find everything black and burnt.

“Wait, but why do the plants and nature look like that?” Allura asked. “Scar’s actions should not have had any effect on them.”

She could tell by the paladin’s faces that there would be no clear answers. After a moment Hunk offered, “Maybe it’s like the Balmera? And Scar wasn’t respecting the circle of life, so it’s dying?”

Pidge shrugged. “It’s as good a theory as any. I’ve always just accepted that it’s for dramatic effect.”

“Oh good, Simba’s friends came too,” Coran said, looking at the small group coming together on screen, slowly sneaking closer towards the mountain (Pride Rock, Allura thought she remembered it being called that).

Allura chuckled a bit at Simba’s “live bait” comment, only to burst out into laughter at the sudden randomness of Timon dancing around, singing about being eaten to distract the hyenas. She wasn’t sure what a “luau” was, but she currently didn’t care, as distracted as she was at the hilarity.

“Perhaps… perhaps Lance _is_ actually Timon,” she wheezed out between laughs.

While the others laughed Lance protested loudly, “I’m not the comic relief!”

“Sure you’re not,” Keith said sarcastically.

“I’m not!” Lance complained again, but no one paid him much mind as Simba had now finally revealed himself. Not a minute later Scar was back to his old tricks of trying to trick Simba. And apparently Simba had learned nothing from his time away, because he seemed to be falling for it again. And then he was almost literally falling. Off a cliff.

Allura wasn’t sure why the ground was suddenly on fire, but she was too wrapped up in the action to question it.

Simba seemed to gain strength after Scar’s confession to him being the one to kill Mufasa, and jumped onto him, forced him to confess, and now the lions and hyenas were in an epic fight against each other, under an angry red sky, the ground burning below them.

“Quiznack,” Coran said softly, as enthralled as Allura was.

Timon and Pumbaa joined the fight, followed soon by Rafiki. Allura wasn’t sure why the movie was focused on these characters and their antics at the height of the action, but they were somewhat amusing.

The confrontation between Scar and Simba was full of tension. For a moment Allura thought that Scar might actually just leave and that would be it, but he quickly showed that he would not leave without a fight. Or without one last slimy trick, as he flung embers into Simba’s eyes.

A moment later Allura had another question, but Coran asked it before she could. “Why are they now moving so slow? Seems like an ineffective fighting style.”

“Oh, they’re not really moving that slow.” Shiro was once again the one offering the explanation. “It’s just slow-mo, or slow-motion. The characters are moving at real speed for them, but we’re just watching it slowed down. It’s a cinematic filming style that-”

“Shiro, I love you like a brother, but please, shush,” Pidge said, lightly slapping Shiro’s leg while staring at the action onscreen. Hunk and Lance each let out tiny “awws” at Pidge’s statement.

Simba finally managed to push Scar off Pride Rock, but after a moment he got back up again.

“Oh come on!” Allura protested.

“Just wait,” Lance responded cryptically.

Allura saw what he meant a moment later as the hyenas appeared and… presumably killed Scar by tearing him apart?

“You said you watched this as children?” Allura asked the paladins, a little concerned for a culture where this was acceptable.

“Why do you think it’s off-screen?” Pidge countered, seemingly unaffected by the violence.

Allura decided it was better to put that concerning thought aside for now. Rain started up, turning the color tone from the blaring red it had been to a more blue-gray. 

Simba slowly made his way to the top of Pride Rock, and after a moment’s hesitation let out a powerful roar, the other lions soon joining in. After all of the struggle to get there, it truly was a powerful moment.

“You know, those aren’t actually lion roars,” Keith said. “It’s a combination of tiger roars and a dude named Frank with a trashcan.”

Everyone but Lance, who looked like he was barely restraining himself from jumping up and attacking Keith, managed to ignore him and stay focused on the movie. Whether it was because of what Keith had said or that it was Keith that said it, Allura was unsure.

In a moment the scenery was as pretty as it had been at the start of the movie, as if the dark times with Scar had never happened. The main characters were all gathered at the top of Pride Rock while other animals “cheered” below. Allura gasped when Rafiki appeared and lifted a tiny cub, who she assumed was Simba and Nala’s child, into the air, while off-screen voices once again sang passionately about the “circle of life.”

With a thud the same words from the start of the screen appeared, which Lance read aloud like he had for the start of the movie. “The Lion King.”

Other words started appearing on the screen, but Pidge paused it after a few seconds. “Now it’s just the credits, which is like a list of everyone who made the movie and what their job was. We could let it play, but there’s a lot of names, and the actual movie is done now.”

“I suppose we can stop then,” Allura said. If the story was truly done, then she was not too excited to just look at names in a language she couldn’t read. 

“So goooood!” Lance groaned, leaning against Hunk. “Good choice, buddy.”

“Thanks, bro,” Hunk responded, patting Lance’s shoulder. “So how did you two like it?” He asked Coran and Allura.

“Well I for one thoroughly enjoyed it!” Coran said enthusiastically. “The action, the suspense, the drama!”

“It’s actually adapted from one of the most famous Earth stories of all time,” Shiro said. “So you can kind of consider this your introduction to Shakespeare too.”

Allura almost asked him to clarify, but she was still caught up in the emotions the movie had left her with, and was not mentally prepared for yet another explanation from Shiro.

“I liked it too,” Allura simply said instead. “The songs in particular were quite good, and it was very beautiful.”

“Would you say it’s your favorite Disney movie?” Lance asked her.

Allura stared at him for a moment. “Well, yes, Lance. I have only seen the one, after all.”

“Alright man, you’re in the lead!” Lance cheered excitedly to Hunk. He smirked. “Won’t last for long though, not after they see my movie.” 

“We’re not seeing any more movies tonight,” Shiro said seriously. 

“Awww,” Lance, Hunk, Pidge, and Coran moaned dejectedly at the same time.

Lance started to protest. “But Shiro-”

“Don’t ‘But Shiro’ me,” Shiro said to Lance, crossing his arms. “We can watch another later, but for now we should rest. Tomorrow we’ll have another busy day of defending the universe.”

“Fine, Dad,” Lance pouted.

Allura stood up and stretched as the others did the same, Pidge going over and turning off the movie. As they left the theater room together a minute later, Coran, Hunk, and Pidge were trying to sing “Be Prepared” together, with Hunk and Pidge correcting Coran where he messed up the words. Lance pestered Keith, asking him, “Seriously, why in the world do you know all that random stuff?” Keith stayed stubbornly silent, but with a small smile on his face. Shiro came up beside Allura.

“Did you really like it?” He asked softly, like he was worried she was just going along with it for their sakes. Which, she thought to herself, she probably would have done if she hadn’t actually enjoyed it, looking around and seeing how happy it made the others. This was not the case, however.

“I really did,” she reassured Shiro. “And I’m quite looking forward to the next one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Lance's movie


	3. The Little Mermaid

It was almost another whole week before Allura and the others found themselves with enough time to watch the next movie. There had been a planet in desperate need of their help in fighting off the Galra, and liberating it had been rough. After they finally succeeded Lance and Keith had both needed healing pods for almost a day (Lance for getting shot in the leg, Keith for getting shot in the arm. Hunk joked a bit later about it matching their lions). The day they got out it was decided that the crew had earned a small rest, and so all seven of them (eleven counting the mice, who Allura had to persuade to come after what happened with The Lion King) were back in the theater room, Pidge holding the cup with the movie options.

“Since Allura picked last time, Coran, you get to select tonight’s movie,” Pidge told Coran, holding out the cup to him. “No peaking!” she admonished him, holding the cup up as high as she could when Coran started to peer inside. Even with this it was well within Coran’s ability to look down easily into the cup (their height difference was pretty significant), but he humored Pidge and turned his head away as he reached in and selected a scrap of paper. 

After Coran handed the paper over to Pidge she unfolded it and read it to the group. “The Little Mermaid,” she said. “Looks like we have a bunch of Disney Renaissance fans on our hands.”

“Yours?” Hunk asked Lance knowingly.

“Of course!” Lance crowed. “Ah yeah! Second the best!”

“Wouldn’t first be the best?” Keith asked, confused.

Lance looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope! Not even your obtuse-ness can bring me down! Allura, Coran, prepare yourselves for the best Disney movie ever made.”

“What makes it the best?” Allura asked curiously.

“It has mermaids in it!” Lance crowed. 

“Of course,” Keith snorted.

“That’s not the only reason!” Lance said defensively. “There’s also action, suspense, true love, amazing songs, beautiful backgrounds, and a heroine who is _not_ , I repeat _not_ , foolish; merely young and curious about a world so different from her own.”

Everyone but Hunk looked surprised at Lance’s outburst. “You seem very passionate about this movie,” Allura said to Lance.

“He’s had to defend himself a lot,” Hunk explained. “You guys are lucky you only had to hear the short version. I once had to listen to him rant about how amazing the movie is for 20 minutes straight.”

“Which I would do again in a heartbeat if needed,” Lance stated firmly. “But I’m not going to now, cause we have a masterpiece to watch! Pidge, you got another one of those synopsizes for Coran and Allura? I’d probably give too much away,” he admitted a bit sheepishly. 

“On it,” Pidge spoke, her laptop on her lap. A moment later she read off the screen, “‘When a headstrong mermaid named Ariel falls in love with a dashing human prince, she longs to be part of the magical world on land. With the help of her friends, shy, loveable Flounder and Sebastian, a reggae-singing crab, Ariel bravely ventures from her underwater home to try and win her prince’s love in a thrilling race against time.’ Oh hey,” Pidge continued. “This is the cover with the pe-“

“Pidge!” Shiro shouted, stopping her.

“What?” she asked innocently. “I was only going to say people singing.”

“Oh,” Shiro said, settling back down. “Alright then.”

“Also there’s a huge dick on the cover.”

“Pidge!” Shiro cried out too late. “Language!”

“Ignoring that,” Allura said after a moment (“It’s best if you do,” Hunk advised from his spot), “I think I understood that synopsis pretty well. A mermaid is similar to the creatures Lance and Hunk saved, correct?”

“Right you are, Princess!” Lance agreed with her, Hunk nodding along too.

“Is this a love story?” Coran asked. “I love a good love story.”

“It definitely is,” Pidge said. “In fact, a lot of Disney movies involve some form of a love story, like with Nala and Simba from the last one. This one just happens to have it be the main focus.”

“This one just happens to be the best love story ever told!” Lance added in enthusiastically.

“Sure, buddy,” Hunk said just as Pidge looked like she was ready to debate Lance on that. Hunk shot her a look which clearly said, “Let’s not get into it right now and just watch the dang movie.”

Pidge sighed, conceding to Hunk. “Any other questions?”

“No, I think we are adequately prepared,” Allura said.

“Alight,” said Pidge. Shiro added, “Just remember we can always pause it if there’s anything too confusing going on.”

“Understood, Shiro, thank you,” Allura said, nodding at him.

“And away we go!” Pidge said, dramatically pressing play on her remote. Everyone was ready and sitting in their same spots they had been in for the first movie: Allura and Coran in their own chairs on opposite ends, Keith and Hunk on one couch, Shiro and Pidge on the other, and Lance on the floor resting against Hunk.

Allura was not expecting, but at the same time was not surprised to see the same sequence of the night sky, river, and castle that had played before the previous movie. At least now she knew what it was, a logo, even if the concept still didn’t make a lot of sense to her. 

“Disney,” Lance read aloud as the word appeared on the screen.

“Thank you, Lance, I remember,” said Allura.

Lance didn’t seem to hear her, his focus completely glued in front of him to the screen.

This time after the screen went black it opened on a cloudy sky with some birds flying around. 

“Those are seagulls,” Shiro said as music started playing. “They live near the ocean.”

Allura nodded to show that she understood.

There were creatures leaping out of the water now. “Dolphins,” Shiro said. He looked like he wanted to add more, but a ship suddenly appeared out of the fog and he stopped, distracted.

Allura saw that there were humans on this ship. So this was going to be different from the last movie, then. Now they were going to get to see some of how humans lived on Earth! She was looking forward to seeing that; the last movie, while good, didn’t tell her much about human life, being completely about animals. She wanted to see what life had been like for her paladins before they met.

The humans on the ship were singing as they pulled fish out of the water. As she tried to listen Allura saw what appeared to be a woman carved onto the front of the ship which she thought was a… _interesting_ design choice. 

A man with black hair started talking with a man who was clearly ill (unless humans were meant to change their color to green. She’d have to ask the paladins later). Allura saw Lance nudge Hunk and mouth, “You.” Hunk pushed him, most likely trying to be gentle, but the force of it still managed to make Lance fall over.

Allura’s ears perked up at the mention of “King Triton.” So humans did have monarchies, after all. Or well, maybe not, as a man with hair almost as orange as Coran’s explained that King Triton was the ruler of the merpeople, not the humans, though it seemed like not everyone believed that mermaids existed.

A fish in the bearded man’s hand flew out over the ship and swam down into the depths. 

“Why are they catching the fish?” Allura asked as the song of the sailors faded.

“They’re fishing,” Hunk said. 

Nothing more was added, as if that statement explained everything. “Which means…?” Allura prompted.

Hunk looked abashed. “Whoops, sorry. Um, they’re catching the fish to eat them later.”

“Oh, I see.” Allura understood now. She had known that humans were capable of eating meat (though she’d had little opportunity to see it herself, as they still ate food goo for most meals). While Alteans did have the ability to digest meat, most chose not to. Allura would also never have thought of catching animals to eat from the ocean. The oceans on Altea were much less… habitable to life, to say the least.

While she had been lost in thought the fish from before had continued swimming through the waters, and much like “The Lion King” had done, the movie was showing lots of different shots of the animals of the particular environment, though this time it was the ocean, not the Savannah.

“The Little Mermaid,” Lance read once Allura saw words in English appear in the water.

More words faded in soon after that. Lance started to read. “With the voice talents of-” but before he could get any further the words faded away. Lance huffed.

“Do we need to go back to that last part?” Coran asked, looking at Lance.

“Not really.” Pidge said, as even more words faded into view. “In some Disney movies, particularly the older ones, they would put some or all of the credits at the start of the movie instead of the end. That’s all this is,” she waved her hand at the screen. “It’s just the names of some of the important people who helped make the movie.”

Allura nodded at Pidge, but her attention quickly shifted back to the screen. She hadn’t noticed at first, but some of the creatures swimming now were shaped much like the beings of the planet Lance and Hunk had rescued. 

Though she was pretty sure, she decided to double-check, and asked, “Are these the mermaids?”

“Yup!” Lance said, visibly excited.

The mermaids all seemed to be heading in the same direction, which was revealed to be a kind of underwater castle. It was shaped differently than most castles Allura had seen, but then again, she was not used to human castles, let alone mermaid castles.

The mermaids all seemed to be heading towards the same room. A small, bright-colored creature introduced King Triton, who came in the room pulled by what she remembered Shiro calling “dolphins.” 

A smaller creature was introduced, with a name as long as Coran’s full name, to less enthusiastic applause than King Triton had received. The two conversed with each other, and from what Allura could gather this was a performance by King Triton’s daughters. 

Sebastian (she had heard the king refer to the red creature by that name) went to the front of what Allura could tell now was a stage, and set himself up. He tapped and waved a stick, which seemed to cue a bunch of other creatures with musical instruments to start a song. 

Allura recalled the animals from the previous film. None of them had used any sort of tools like this. She wondered if this was a completely accurate representation of Earthly aquatic life. Maybe water animals were smarter than land animals?

Singing mermaid sisters in seashells were now singing an introduction of themselves.

“Allura’s name fits right in with them,” Hunk commented. Lance made a noise of affirmation but didn’t look away from the screen. Allura thought she could see him mouth the names of the sisters as they were introduced.

“The ‘A’ team,” Pidge commented, earning chuckles from the other humans.

Apparently not all of the team was present, however, as one sister, Ariel, was missing, and shown to be off by herself with a yellow and blue fish named Flounder.

A ship appeared, looking a lot like the one from earlier, except this one was broken and underwater.

“The Titanic,” Hunk said in a joking tone, and again the humans laughed. 

“No, it’s Elsa and Anna’s parents’ ship,” Pidge said. The others glanced at her. “What? You thought Keith was the only one who knew random Disney things? I’m the master, suckers.”

“Who are…” Allura was about to ask, but Pidge waved her hand dismissively. “Sorry,” she said, “different Disney movie, forget it. We should just be focusing on this one for now.”

By this time Ariel and Flounder had made it to the sunken ship, and were exploring around inside it. Ariel spotted something, swam over to it excitedly, and started gushing about her find.

Coran and Allura glanced at each other. “Is that a…” Allura started.

“Fork?” Coran finished.

“Yup,” Hunk said, nodding.

“Ariel’s a mermaid, and hasn’t seen a lot of human things,” Shiro explained. “She’s pretty curious and interested in them.”

“A curious and scientific mind,” Lance called out. “All the more reason why she is amazing.”

“Apparently not amazing enough to tell when there are sharks nearby,” Keith said as a fast creature with huge teeth, seemingly a shark, started chasing after Ariel and Flounder.

“She’s not psychic,” Lance defended. “Just brave!”

“You mean reckless,” Keith said.

“Kind of sounds like a certain paladin I know” Shiro said, moving his head slowly to stare at Keith, who huffed at him while the others laughed.

Ariel and Flounder had made it to the surface, where a white bird-creature seemed to be waiting. “Is that a… seagull?” Allura asked.

Shiro smiled proudly at her. “Yes it is!”

“How is Ariel’s hair dry?” Coran asked, and now that Allura looked, she noticed that that was indeed the case. “She was just in the water!”

Lance shrugged. “Disney magic.”

That statement did not make a lot of sense to Allura (did Disney have mystic power capable of altering physics?), but she decided to hold off trying to clarify for now. The seagull was explaining various items to the mermaid, but it was clear even to Allura that he was incorrect in his explanations. Unless “dinglehopper” was the correct term for a fork on Earth; but no, Hunk had called it a fork earlier. She supposed the seagull could be excused for his inaccuracy though; he was just a bird, after all.

Some creepy-looking creatures with glowing eyes watched Ariel and Flounder as the mermaid and fish swam away, and their eyes morphed into a viewing-orb for… well, some creature in the dark with an unpleasant-sounding voice. When the being leaned into the light Allura still had no idea what (she?) was supposed to be. 

Allura shot a questioning look at Shiro, half-surprised he hadn’t already explained. “What is this creature?”

“I’m… not sure,” Shiro said hesitantly. “Her name is Ursula, and she’s a witch, but I don’t know what kind of being she is, except she’s like a mermaid but with octopus legs instead of a tail? Is there a name for that?” he asked, looking at Keith.

“What?” Keith asked. “Why do you assume I would know?”

“You literally spent most of your time on Earth researching strange creatures and trying to prove their existence,” Shiro said.

“What, really?” Lance asked, looking up from the screen for the first time in a while. “Like Mothman?”

“…shut up,” Keith said. “And Shiro, no, I have no idea what this Ursula-thing is supposed to be.”

“Oh well, worth a shot,” Shiro said, shrugging.

Whatever “Ursula” was, Allura found her to be fairly unnerving as she faded from the screen, smiling evilly, whispering about King Triton’s “undoing.” Allura felt herself shudder involuntarily.

Afterwards, while Ariel was being reprimanded by her father, Allura came to a realization about Earth. “So mermaids keep themselves secret from humans?”

“Yep,” Lance said. “In the prequel to this film it’s shown that humans caused the death of Ariel’s mom, which is why her dad is so big on them staying separate.”

“You’ve seen the prequel?” Pidge asked, giving Lance a look that clearly portrayed she was judging Lance.

“I didn’t say it was _good_ ,” Lance defended.

“How many times have you seen it?” Pidge pushed.

“… shut up,” Lance said in the exact same tone Keith had used a few minutes prior.

Allura meant to ask about this prequel business, but she was distracted by King Triton and Ariel yelling at each other, to the point where Ariel looked like she was about to cry before swimming away.

“He’s quite a different sort of king than Mufasa, isn’t he?” Coran commented.

“He’s trying his best,” Shiro said in response. “He knows humans are dangerous, and he wants to protect Ariel from them. What he doesn’t realize is that Ariel is at that age where by outright forbidding something she’ll just run straight to it. Sometimes it’s better to just let teenagers discover for themselves that something is a bad idea.”

“Are you sure you’re not a dad?” Pidge teased Shiro.

“What do you mean Pidge? Of course he’s a dad! He’s got us, doesn’t he?” Hunk said.

Shiro smiled but didn’t deny the statement. Allura was afraid to ask for clarification, and so after a questioning look at Coran, who shook his head as he clearly had no explanation either, decided to just move on.

Sabastian was now reluctantly given orders to follow Ariel by King Triton. Allura watched as he started following after Ariel and Flounder.

“Wait!” Keith suddenly shouted, making everyone jump. He turned to Shiro. “So back on Earth, when I said I wanted to get a tattoo, and you said sure, and researched it with me, and I changed my mind, were you...?”

Shiro smiled knowingly. “Let’s just say I’ve picked up a few tricks over the years.”

Keith grumbled to himself, while Pidge said in awe, “You really are a dad.”

“Shh!” Lance hissed at them. “The best song’s coming up.”

“You really like songs, don’t you Lance,” Allura commented, but was shocked as Lance signaled at her to be quiet too. She couldn’t remember a single other instance where Lance had dismissed her. This must really be important to him then. She turned her attention back to the screen, determined to see what it was about this that captivated Lance so.

The three characters were now in a sort of cavern full of random items. 

“Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat?” Ariel started singing.

“Jodi Benson, voice of an angel,” Lance sighed quietly while remaining captivated. 

Allura watched as the mermaid continued to sing about being curious and captivated by humans, wanting to be “part of that world.” The others remained quiet for the whole song – perhaps they, like Allura, had sensed Lance’s intensity and were remaining quiet out of respect for him. Or perhaps they, also like Allura, were marveling at the scene, how Ariel seemed to dance gracefully as she swam around in the water, how her voice portrayed her clear longing for a world so drastically different from her own, and how the soft music seemed to compliment everything just right.

Allura could also identify with Ariel about her lack of knowledge about humans; throughout the song Ariel seemed to forget certain words, or not understand the meaning of other things, and while Allura herself knew what a fire was, she completely understood feeling like you didn’t know enough about another culture.

“I can see why you like that song, Lance,” Allura said to him as the music notes faded away. “It was quite nice.” Lance nodded in agreement; for a moment Allura thought that his eyes and face looked a bit red, but Lance quickly flashed her one of his large grins and she decided she must have imagined it. 

“It’s probably my favorite song of the movie too,” Shiro said admitted.

“Mine too,” Hunk agreed.

“Eh, I prefer the villain song,” Pidge shrugged.

“You would,” Hunk replied, causing Pidge, Hunk, and Lance to laugh a little. 

In a moment of generosity, Lance turned up to Keith. “What’s your favorite song in this movie, Keith?” he asked.

“Dunno,” Keith said. “I’ve never seen this before.”

A moment later the movie froze, just as Ariel broke the surface of the water to see a ship with bright explosions of color coming off of it. “Hey!” Allura cried. Turning away from the screen however, she saw not only Lance, but the other paladins looking at Keith in abject horror.

“What?” Lance chocked out. “How can you not have seen this movie before!? It’s a classic!”

Keith shrugged. “I haven’t seen a lot of Disney movies, actually. Only really saw a few growing up, and that was a long time ago.”

Everything was still for a few more moments as the others seemed to be wrapping their heads around this.

“That’s… so sad,” Lance said finally.

“Tragic,” Hunk added, agreeing.

“A travesty,” Pidge continued.

Keith rolled his eyes. “First I know too much about Disney, then I know too little. Would you all stop being so shocked at every little thing I say?”

“Hey, that’s right, you knew all that stuff about The Lion King!” Lance yelled, remembering. “How’d you know that stuff if you don’t know Disney well?”

Keith opened his mouth as if he were about to explain, but Coran spoke first. “Paladins, if you don’t mind, I’m actually quite invested in this movie right now, and would appreciate if we could get back to it.”

Lance seemed to be having a bit of an internal conflict, but after a moment he sighed. “You’re right, Coran,” he said. He gave Keith a stern look though, pointing at him. “But I’m not forgetting this.”

Keith shrugged, seemingly unintimidated.

The movie resumed, and as Allura watched more of the colored lights explode, she finally asked, “Alight, what exactly are those?”

“You mean the fireworks?” asked Hunk.

“They didn’t have fireworks on Altea?” Pidge asked.

Both Coran and Allura shook their heads.

“Fireworks are made of this mix of certain powders, which when set on fire, explode in big, colorful… well, explosions,” Shiro said. “They’re often used on Earth on certain holidays, and to celebrate something.”

“Is this a celebration?” Allura asked, seeing a bunch of sailors dancing around on the ship.

“Yep,” Hunk said. “It’s Eric’s, that black-haired guy’s, birthday.”

So humans celebrated their birthdays with colorful explosions. She’d have to remember this the next time a paladin said it was their birthday.

Ariel seemed to be fascinated with this ‘Eric,’ who was revealed in a moment to actually be ‘Prince Eric.’ So he was royalty too, Allura thought. And apparently a prince who was looking for a bride. Ariel’s eyes widened and Allura felt a suspicion about those two characters…

A storm started out of nowhere, causing the crew to fight to keep the ship steady, and Allura gasped as it suddenly also caught on fire. And then hit rocks. And then humans were falling off the ship and into the water.

For a moment it seemed as though everyone was safe in a smaller boat, but Prince Eric went back for his furry animal and got stuck… right before the ship exploded. Before Allura could be too worried Ariel was there, rescuing the prince and bringing him to the shore.

The seagull looking for a heartbeat in the human’s foot seemed odd (Is that where humans normally look for a pulse?), but Prince Eric was shown clearly breathing a moment later, so he must be alright. 

A moment later Ariel started singing something that sounded a lot like the song she had sung earlier, but the desire was directed towards wanted to be specifically with Prince Eric, rather than wanting to know about all humans. She dove away into the water as Eric’s friends found him, though she continued to watch him from behind a rock, finishing her song and vowing to one day be with him somehow. It was a nice image, that of Ariel rising above the rock she had hid behind, as the waves and music crashed simultaneously.

After Ursula plotted to herself manically, Ariel was shown with her sisters. 

“I’d forgotten about them,” Allura admitted.

“Don’t worry,” Pidge said. “Everyone does.”

When one of Ariel’s sisters commented that she must be in love, Allura was a bit confused. Did humans fall in love that fast? With Alteans it took a little bit of time, getting to know each other slowly before declaring their love.

“It’s not necessarily love,” Shiro said, to Allura’s surprise. How was he able to sense that she even had a question? He continued, “A lot of Disney movies like to portray ‘love at first sight,’ but really, at this point, it’s not so much love as infatuation.”

“Um, sorry Shiro, but it’s totally true love,” Lance disagreed. “And love at first sight totally exists.”

“You really think that?” Keith asked, looking at Lance.

“Course I do,” Lance said stubbornly. “Take this movie for example. From the moment they both saw each other Ariel and Eric-”

“Lance,” Hunk interjected. “You’re about to miss the next song.”

“Oh shoot. Thanks buddy.” Lance immediately quieted down and refocused back on the screen.

Pidge looked at Hunk and whispered, “Thank you.” Hunk gave her thumbs up in exchange.

A song was indeed starting, one with a very catchy, upbeat melody. As Sebastian sang Allura couldn’t help but notice that he spoke in a way that sounded slightly different than the way the paladins spoke. 

“Up in DE sun DEY slave away,” Coran repeated after Sebastian, looking slightly puzzled. It would appear that he had noticed too.

“He’s Jamacain, mon,” Pidge said. 

“It’s his accent,” Shiro clarified. “A lot of people, or crabs I suppose, who learn to speak another language other than the one they first learned have an accent from their first language.”

“Humans speak more than one language?” Both Alteans were surprised at this. “That seems incredibly inefficient.”

Shiro looked like he wanted to say more, but Lance held up his hand. “Guys! Now is not the time for a linguistics lesson! Now is the time for an aquatic animals/music lesson! Listen to all these talented fish!”

So Allura did listen, and she was impressed, both by the number of fish, and the number of instruments. There was quite a lot of sound happening, but it was all coming together in an amazing way. All of the humans seemed to be swaying at least some in their seat, though Lance was the only one who looked like he was outright dancing. Coran looked at Lance and seemed to take guidance from him, and started dancing around in his seat, though much less coordinated.

Allura thought the creatures had all done a great job at the end of the song. It was too bad, she thought, that Ariel didn’t stick around for the ending. Allura felt like Ariel had not appreciated that hard work.

While Sebastian awkwardly spoke with King Triton, Hunk turned to Keith. “So what do you think, Keith? Enjoying the movie so far?”

Keith nodded. “I think I prefer The Lion King so far, but this is alright.”

“Coran? Allura? Your thoughts?” Hunk asked the Alteans.

“I’m enjoying it,” Allura said, Coran nodding along with her. 

“Course you are,” Lance said. “It’s not the best Disney film for nothing!”

The others looked like they might not agree with that, but at that moment Sebastian accidentally revealed Ariel’s connection with humans, and King Triton’s outburst caused all of them to jump. After a bit of chuckling they all turned back to the screen.

Oh, and Flounder got that stature of Prince Eric for Ariel. That was sweet! But…

“How did that little fish get that huge statue into that tiny cave?” It was Pidge who asked this question.

“No one ever said he did it by himself!” Lance defended. 

Suddenly King Triton was there, and he was not looking pleased. He went on a rant about the dangers of humans, which Ariel interrupted with a declaration of love.

“But does she really love him so soon?” Allura asked, still confused about this. Lance nodded enthusiastically, Shiro, Keith, and Pidge shook their heads no, and Hunk shrugged. Coran didn’t take his eyes off the screen, where…

Oh dear.

“How could he do that!?” Allura cried out as King Triton used his trident to destroy all of Ariel’s human collection, even the statue of Prince Eric she had just gotten. 

“Cause he’s a jerk,” Hunk said simply. Surprisingly it was Lance who spoke up in the king’s defense.

“No, see, right there when he looks back at her? That’s regret. He hates that he’s making her feel this way, but he knows how dangerous humans can be. All he wants is for her to be safe, even if it means that she is angry with him.”

“That was… surprisingly insightful, Lance,” Shiro said. “I couldn’t have put it any better myself.”

“Hey, you try watching this movie 20+ times and not being able to see things from every character’s perspective,” Lance said shrugging.

“You’ve seen this movie more than 20 times?” Allura asked. She could not imagine watching the same movie that much, no matter how good it was.

“Eh, approximately,” Lance shrugged. “Now pay attention, there’s an important part coming up.”

While they had been talking, Ariel had been persuaded by the creepy-looking creatures of Ursula to go to her for help, against Sebastian’s advice. And against Allura’s judgement as well. In her opinion, Ariel really should have taken how awful Ursula’s place looked, and how she was attacked before even entering, as a sign to turn away. 

But, Allura supposed, if there was one thing about Ariel’s character that was clear, it was that she was curious and brave. And Allura wasn’t sure, if she was being honest, if she would have turned back at that point either.

Ursula spoke to Ariel in a way that reminded Allura of how Scar spoke to Simba: creepily sweet and clearly manipulative. Before she could think about that anymore another song started up.

Immediately Allura could see why Pidge liked this song; at least, Allura assumed that this was the villain song she had spoken of. Though she knew that Ursula was clearly up to no good, the song she sang was, for a lack of a better word, fun. Out of the corner of her eye Allura thought she could see Pidge mouthing along with some of the words. Make that all of the words.

Ursula explained her deal to Ariel, to make her human for three days, during which she had to get Prince Eric to fall in love with her. 

“Seriously, is that even possible for humans?” Allura thought to herself. She was still perplexed that humans could call a feeling ‘true love’ after so short a time, but she didn’t ask about it, for one since she just had, and also since Ursula was explaining the caveat. 

“She has to make him fall in love with her without her voice? How will she explain who she is?” Coran asked.

“You’ll see,” Pidge said. “Besides, she’ll have her looks,” Pidge started quoting along with Ursula. “Her pretty face. And don’t underestimate the importance of bod-y-language, ha!” 

Pidge and the others laughed. “I love that line,” Pidge chuckled.

When Ariel signed her name on Ursula’s contract, Allura couldn’t help but feel that she made a mistake. A minute later Ariel’s voice was gone, she had human legs instead of a tail, and Sebastian and Flounder were quickly bringing her up to the surface. That’s right, humans couldn’t breathe underwater. Ariel could have died right then! 

Fortunately she made it to the surface in time, breaking the water in the loveliest way Allura had ever seen. The seagull joined the other three, and together they agreed to help Ariel (Sebastian took some convincing). 

Unfortunately it seemed that they decided to follow the seagull’s advice, and Allura burst out laughing seeing Ariel show off her gown made of a sail and some rope.

“And what exactly kind of creature is that?” Allura asked as Eric’s animal companion appeared and chased Ariel onto a rock.

“Oh sorry, we didn’t say? That’s a dog,” Shiro said. “They’re a common pet on Earth.”

“And why can’t he talk if the other animals can?” Coran asked. His eyes widened. “Is it like those two dogs Lance talked about a while ago?”

“I can’t believe you remember that,” Lance said disbelievingly. “And yeah, kind of.” Coran nodded like it now made sense to him. Allura wasn’t sure that it did to her, but she was focusing on Ariel’s attempts to communicate with Prince Eric. They were not going great.

In an attempt to act out her story Ariel wound up falling into Eric’s arms; at least he was kind enough to offer to help her.

Ariel washed up in a tub while her “clothes” (and Sebastian) were washed in a different tub. Human’s had a funny way of cleaning their clothes, but Allura tried not to judge. It still seemed to get them clean.

When Ariel was all clean she rejoined Prince Eric, now dressed in a large, pink gown. It reminded Allura of some of the older Altean fashions for women, though the sleeves were a lot bigger on this dress. 

“Oh no,” Allura whispered a moment later, giggling a bit as Ariel started to brush her hair with a fork at the table. That seagull and his ill advice! Fortunately Ariel seemed to figure out that she was doing something wrong from the humans’ looks, but apparently didn’t think to apply that logic to the other device the older human had, blowing on it and covering him in black a moment later. Fortunately Prince Eric seemed to find it amusing rather than rude.

The scene changed back to a kitchen with Sebastian and a singing chef. 

“This guy always makes me think of you,” Lance said to Hunk.

“Just because I cook too doesn’t mean I’m like this weird guy!” Hunk protested.

“So you’re telling me that you don’t sing about cooking while you cook?”

“…I will neither confirm nor deny that statement.”

“Guys, you’re missing the creepy guy’s creepy song!” Pidge hissed at them. They quieted down, but Allura almost wished that they didn’t. This song wasn’t bad, but it was still uncomfortable seeing this human chop and cook fish body parts, especially since Allura knew that they had all been alive, sentient, and likely singing at some point. She couldn’t blame Sebastian for freaking out and trying to escape. She was concerned about the human chef’s state of mind, that he immediately starting throwing knifes around the kitchen to try and kill this small crab. Allura looked at Shiro.

Shiro looked back at her and shrugged. “He’s just crazy,” was all he offered for explanation. 

“Please don’t think ill of all Earth chefs because of this guy,” said Hunk. “Most of us are sane.”

Allura reassured him that she wouldn’t think any less of him or other human chefs because of this one human (though she was concerned that Hunk didn’t say that _all_ Earth chefs were sane).

When dinner was over dinner, Ariel got ready for bed. After watching the prince through her window she jumped into her bed, which Allura had to admit did look very comfortable. She couldn’t blame Ariel for falling asleep so quickly; Allura would have to see what she could do to make her own bed that soft.

When the movie showed King Triton again, Allura realized that she hadn’t realized that Ariel had left without letting her father or sisters know where she was or what she was doing. “What have I done?” the king asked himself, alone. “Serves him right,” was Allura’s first thought for how he treated Ariel, but she remembered what Lance had said. She could see the situation from the king’s perspective, and he was clearly worried for his daughter right now. So Allura did feel some measure of pity for him.

The next day Eric took Ariel out exploring, and Allura was excited to see more of how humans lived. Apparently they got around in vehicles pulled by… (“Horses,” Shiro supplied.) horses. The city seemed to be made primarily out of brick, stone, and tile. Ariel kept finding new things to peak her interest, exploring something quickly before running off to the next thing.

“See,” Lance said to no one in particular. “It’s not just about the prince. Ariel’s always been fascinated by humans and human culture. I’m certain that she still would have made some sort of deal to become human even if she hadn’t met Eric.”

“Yes, yes, Lance, she’s much more developed and strong than she’s given credit for,” Hunk reassured him.

Allura admired the way Ariel and Eric were dancing. She might have to get someone to demonstrate for her sometime, she thought, while looking at Shiro out of the corner of her eye…

All too soon Prince Eric and Ariel had left the town, which was a shame since Allura would have liked to see more of human day-to-day life. The two were soon on a small boat on the water by themselves, in a very picturesque looking scene. The seagull attempted to serenade the two, but did not seem to be doing a good job, judging by the humans’ reactions.

Fortunately Sebastian was there. That’s right, Allura thought. She had forgotten that he was a music conductor at the start of the film. And sure enough, he began to conduct another song.

“Hey Lance, which is a better love song, this one or ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight?’” Pidge asked. 

“Aww, Pidge, don’t make me choose!” Lance whined. “I wouldn’t make you choose between different Rover and Beezer!”

“I think that’s a little different,” Pidge said. “But point taken.”

“Guys, shh!” Keith hissed at them. “Let Allura and Coran listen!”

“And so you can listen too?” Lance said, partly teasing, but he quieted down.

Allura was grateful. The song really was nice. She realized she had thought that about most of the songs in this movie, but it was true. Sebastian really was good at his job. 

She groaned every time Eric pulled away from kissing Ariel, but finally it seemed as if they actually would kiss…

And then the boat tipped over. 

Oh, and it was Ursula’s creatures! Allura should have suspected that Ursula would cheat. Though a moment later it seemed like she was prepared to cheat even more than just by tipping boats over.

Sure enough, just as it seemed that Prince Eric was giving up his dream of finding his mysterious savior, in favor of being with Ariel, Ursula, in human form and with Ariel’s voice, approached and seemingly enchanted the prince.

“Boo!” Coran shouted at the screen even as the scene changed. “Boo! Cheater! You had a deal!”

“Technically the deal said nothing about what actions Ursula could take, or if she could use Ariel’s voice.” Everyone turned and look at Pidge. She held up her hands in defense. All I’m saying is that Ariel should have read the fine print!”

As soon as the seagull announced that the prince had announced his marriage, Allura knew that Ursula had to have something to do with it. Thus, she was completely unsurprised when Ariel ran downstairs to see Prince Eric standing with Ursula in disguise. She definitely did something to him. 

Ariel seemed to just give up after seeing the two, watching their… marriage boat? What that a human thing?... sail off into the ocean. Fortunately the seagull was there to catch Ursula sing in her room about her evil plans. 

“Hurray! Purpose for the comic relief!” Hunk seemed happy about that. At Allura’s gaze he said, “It happens less often than you’d think.”

Allura admired how Ariel, once she knew of the situation, didn’t hesitate to go after the boat. It was maybe a little foolish to dive into the water while wearing a dress, but Allura supposed that as a mermaid, Ariel probably wasn’t used to thinking of that problem. 

Flounder started dragging Ariel towards the boat, and the seagull was given orders to stall the wedding. Sebastian went off to tell King Triton about everything.

“Which he should have done three days ago!” Coran called out. “Instead of waiting to the last minute, letting her father get worried sick, putting Ariel in danger…”

“He fell for her puppy-dog eyes,” Pidge said. “No one can resist eyes that big.”

Oh wow, Allura thought. Now that she was looking at them, she realized Ariel’s eyes really _were_ big.. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a creature whose eyes took up that much of their face before. 

Coran still grumbled about Sebastian, something about royal duties, but Allure was distracted by the animals that arrived on the ship and created utter chaos, interrupting the wedding. She supposed that was one way to stall.

During the commotion the witch’s shell necklace broke, giving Ariel back her voice and releasing the prince from her control at the same time. For a moment, as Eric and Ariel embraced, it appeared as though everything was going to be okay.

And then that moment ended.

The sun set before the two kissed, Ariel gasped in pain and turned back into a mermaid, and Ursula burst out of the wedding dress and revealed her true form, dragging Ariel into the sea with her.

Fortunately, King Triton was there. Unfortunately, apparently he was only there to take Ariel’s place as one of Ursula’s creepy creatures/prisoners. That… was not the first thing Allura would have done in that situation.

She didn’t have time to dwell on that though. The action was moving fast now. Ariel attacked Ursula, but then was in danger. Prince Eric saved her and attacked Ursula, but then _he_ was in danger. Flounder, Sebastian, and then Ariel saved him, but now Ursula was mad and _everyone_ was in danger.

Allura was on the edge of her seat. With an evil cackle Ursula burst from the sea, now a giant. As she showed off her new awesome powers Allura wondered how they could possibly hope to win. It was not like they had Voltron.

But apparently they did have pointy ships sharp enough to pierce through a giant sea-witch. A few moments later Ursula was sinking into the sea. On one hand Allura was relieved. On the other hand…

“Anyone else feel like that happened really fast?” Keith asked, speaking for the first time in a while. The others murmured their agreement. 

“Maybe they defeated her a little quickly at the end, but they still had to work for it!” Lance protested. “It wasn’t easy for them at all!”

Allura did agree that the heroes had struggled; this was why, when King Triton turned Ariel back into a human, and she and Prince Eric embraced on the shore, she cheered along with Lance. 

The two were married, with both humans and mermaids in attendance. Ariel and her father embraced, both seemingly forgiving the other, and as the boat sailed off the king created a rainbow over it; it went slowly off into the distance while mermaids waved and off-screen voices soared in Ariel’s earlier song. Ariel and Prince Eric kissed for one last time, and the screen went black.

Pidge stopped the movie there. “It’s just more credits,” she explained. “Again, we could watch them if you want, but…” she trailed off. A moment later Allura realized what had distracted her. Muffled sobs were just barely audible, and looking around, Allura saw that they were coming from…

Lance?

“Lance, are you crying?” Keith asked as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Shut up,” Lance muttered, his face red, trying to wipe away what were clearly tears.

Hunk looked worried. “Bro, I know you really like the movie, but you knew what was going to happen, right?”

“It’s not that,” Lance muttered, drawing his head to his knees.

It was Shiro who slowly got down on the floor next to Lance, placing a hand on his back.

“Lance,” he asked, “Why do you really like this movie?” 

For a few moments Lance was silent, apart from some quiet sobs he was still letting out. He took a deep breath, and spoke, his voice slightly muffled as he kept his head down to avoid looking at anyone. “…I have three older sisters. All of them love this movie. I grew up watching it with them. It kinda became tradition that whenever one of us was sick, or stressed, or upset, we’d watch it together.” Lance sighed. “I’m sorry guys. I guess I hadn’t realized just how much I missed that… And this kind of brought it all back…”

“Aw, Lance,” Hunk cried out, getting down on Lance’s other side and embracing him. “It’s okay to miss your family, dude! We get it! Right, everyone?” Hunk gave them all meaningful looks. However, they were unneeded: Allura saw the same, caring, understanding expression on everyone’s face that mirrored her own.

“Lance, it is perfectly okay to sometimes not be okay,” Allura said, trying to reassure him. 

“Yes, Number Three. You are allowed to miss your family.” Coran joined the growing group on the floor near Lance.

“Just know that we’re always here for you,” Shiro said.

Lance sniffed. “Thanks guys. That means a lot.” Lance took a deep breath and wiped his eyes. Allura knew tell that he probably wasn’t completely better yet, but she respected his decision to try and move on for now. She was kind of amazed at the whole scene that had just happened. She would never have thought that these movies would be so important to the humans, and have such deep emotional ties with them. She realized that, while watching them was helping her learn a lot about humans, and while they were indeed very fun and a nice break for her, the humans needed this just as much if not more than she did.

“Anyway,” Lance continued on, sitting up more, wiping his eyes, “How did you all like it, those of you who just saw it for the first time?”

“I think I prefer The Lion King,” Keith said. “But this was pretty good too,” he quickly admitted.

“I think I liked it perhaps more than the previous movie!” Coran declared. “For all of the reasons Lance stated at the beginning and more!” Allura couldn’t tell if he was being honest or if he was just trying to make Lance feel better, but Lance was smiling at Coran’s words so she didn’t mind much either way. 

“I liked it as well, though I’m not sure which would be my favorite,” Allura said. “However, it was fascinating to see how humans on Earth live! To think that you get around with carriages pulled by animals and in ships on water! And your ability to live without technology is astounding; in fact, I don’t think I saw a single piece of it in the entire movie! Now I understand how you’ve never ventured out of your solar system before. I’m surprised you’ve even made it off of your planet, to be honest! Oh, this ship must have been so confusing to you when you first got here!”

Coran was nodding in agreement with her, but the paladins looked at her confused. It was Hunk who seemed to get it first. “Princess,” he said. “This movie is supposed to take place hundreds of years in the past….”

“What?” Allura asked while the other paladins seemed to realize what Hunk had implied.

“Oh my gosh,” Lance slowly said. “Did we really not tell you at the beginning? Princess, this isn’t even close to what life on Earth is like nowadays! We have spaceships and phones and computers and all sorts of technology. Like Hunk said, this is the past.”

“Oh.” This quite changed Allura’s view of the movie. “Yes, that might have been good to know at the start.”

All of them slowly stood up, stretching, Hunk giving Lance an enormous hug until Lance laughed and insisted he was alright now.

They all started to head out of the room, when Pidge suddenly cried out, “Wait!”

Everyone turned to look at her. “Mermaids aren’t real,” Pidge stated.

Allura was confused. “What?”

“But they were on that planet Number Two and Number Four rescued,” Coran pointed out.

“Well, yes,” Pidge amended. “I guess I didn’t mean that mermaids don’t exist in general. I meant that they don’t exist on Earth.”

“We can’t know that for sure,” Keith interjected. “There’s a lot of the ocean we haven’t explored and don’t fully know about yet.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yeah, what Keith said!” Lance added.

Shiro spoke up. “Alight, how about, to the best of our knowledge, there is no solid evidence of mermaids currently existing on Earth, and are mainly just mythical creatures that exist in stories.”

“So... this movie was not accurate to real life on Earth, but merely a made-up story in the past about creatures that don’t exist?” Allura asked to make sure she understood.

“Pretty much,” Pidge said. “The movie’s actually very based on this way-darker story. You think the villain getting stabbed with a ship was bad? In the original story, Ariel isn’t able to convince the prince to love her, and is given a knife to stab him with to turn back into a mermaid.”

“What!?” Allura cried out, taking a step back while Coran turned pale.

“Yep,” Pidge continued heedlessly. “But she can’t bring herself to kill him, so she dies and turns into sea foam.”

“… that is indeed ‘way-darker,’” Allura said. “I think I prefer this ending.”

“Me too!” Coran agreed with her, still looking a bit pale. 

“Us too, Coran, my man,” Lance said, patting him on the back. “Us too.”

They slowly made their way out of the room, Keith arguing with Shiro about the likely existence of mermaids while Shiro just smiled indulgently at him, Pidge assaulting Lance, Hunk, and Coran with more gruesome details from the original story despite the others’ protests. Once again Allura found herself smiling to see everyone so happy. And now that she understood how important these movies were, she felt an even greater anticipation for the next one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Pidge's movie


	4. The Nightmare Before Christmas

Fortunately for Allura, all of the others seemed just as ready to watch another movie as she was. Thus it was only a few days before they were all once again in that room, ready to watch the next one.

“Okay, but who gets to draw the movie now?” Lance asked. “Allura and Coran have both gone. Do we let them pick again, or what?”

“I don’t mind letting one of you paladins pick one,” Coran said. “How about you, Princess?” 

“No, I don’t mind at all,” said Allura. She got an idea. “Lance, since your movie was the last seen, would you like to choose this one?”

“Yeah – if you draw then we know that no one will show favoritism towards their own,” Pidge said.

“How would I even know which one was mine?” Lance asked her. “Besides, by that logic Hunk should be picking one too.”

“Nah, it’s okay buddy, you can draw this one. I don’t mind,” Hunk said.

Lance smiled at Hunk. “Aww, thanks, bro.”

Hunk nodded. “No problem, bro.”

“Bro.”

“Bro.”

“Are you guys done yet?” Keith asked exasperated.

“You’re just jealous you’re not a bro.” Lance stuck his tongue out at Keith. “I’m going, I’m going!” he insisted a moment later when Keith took a threatening step towards him. “Geez.”

At first Pidge looked like she wanted to hold the cup out for Lance like she had with Coran. But it seemed that, while she had trusted Coran not to cheat, she didn’t feel the same towards Lance, and she passed the cup over to Shiro, who lifted it well above Lance’s head. Lance reached up, making a show of picking a scrap of paper and unfolding it.

Allura was surprised when he let out a groan a moment later. “What’s wrong?” she asked. 

Lance sighed. “It’s nothing. I mean, don’t misunderstand me, this is a great movie, one of my favorites, but it’s going to be heck trying to get this to make sense to you and Coran. It’s… it’s a weird one.” He looked at Pidge. “This was yours, wasn’t it you little gremlin?”

“Depends,” Pidge said. “You still haven’t actually told us what movie it is.”

“The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Lance said.

“Oh yeah, that’s definitely mine,” Pidge said nodding.

“I see what you mean, Lance,” Shiro said thoughtfully. He and Hunk both seemed to be wearing identical looks that were one part excitement, one part worry. “This is a weird movie anyway. Trying to make it make sense to people without even a bit of background for it? This will be difficult.”

“I’m a bit surprised this one is your favorite,” Hunk said to Pidge. “I would have thought you’d have been more of a Big Hero Six fan. You know, young tech genius? Hangs out with robots? Lots of cool gadgets? Forms a team? An older brother… who… oh.” Hunk stopped awkwardly and looked sad.

“Yeah, not really in a Big Hero Six mood,” Pidge said. “But even counting that one, this is still my favorite.”

“Sorry, paladins, but if I may interrupt,” Coran interjected. They all looked to him. “What is Christmas?”

The humans looked at each other. “Coran, my man, you are in for a wild ride,” Lance said, moving over to pat Coran once on the back. Lance’s words did not reassure Allura in the slightest.

A moment later found the seven in their usual sitting positions. 

“Lance, you don’t have to sit on the floor every time,” Shiro said. “One of us can sit down there for this one.”

“No, no, it’s fine Shiro,” Lance said. “I’m used to watching these movies with a lot of family: there always seemed to be more of us than seats, and some of us would always wind up on the floor. So I’m used to it.”

Shiro didn’t look satisfied with that but seemed to accept it. A few moments later Keith slid off of his spot on the couch and sat on the floor next to Lance, who looked at him in surprise.

“What?” he said defensively. “I want to see what it looks like from down here.” Lance didn’t say anything, but the soft smile he gave was enough to cause Keith to turn a bit red before looking away.

Allura smiled at them for only a moment. Then she was ready to move forward with the movie. “So who wants to explain?” she asked. “Or should we start with one of those synopsizes?” 

“I think we’re going to need to start with some background on Earth culture,” said Shiro. “Did you have any holidays on Altea?”

“Certainly!” Coran said. “Why, there were many days of celebration on the Altean calendar!”

“Alright, great,” Shiro said. “Well, we have a lot of holidays on Earth too. Different cultures have different ones, of course, and often people individually choose which ones they want to celebrate, but essentially this movie is an interpretation of two of the biggest holidays, Christmas and Halloween.”

“What were these holidays about?” asked Allura curiously.

“They-” Shiro started to say, but Pidge cut him off. 

“Wait, Shiro. I have an idea. What if we _don’t_ tell them what these holidays are about?”

“But then it won’t make any sense,” Shiro protested.

“No, I think the story itself should still work,” Pidge said as she explained. “I’m just curious to see total outsiders’ interpretations of these holidays based on this movie alone.”

“Oh my gosh,” Lance breathed. “You’re right, that would be _amazing_. Shiro, don’t say another word, we have to do this.”

“But-” Shiro started to say.

“Nope,” Pidge cut him off. “Let’s put it to a vote. All those in favor of not explaining the holidays raise your hand.”

Everyone raised a hand apart from Shiro and the Alteans. “Four to three, overruled,” Pidge declared.

“But what if it doesn’t make any sense to us?” Allura asked.

“It likely won’t,” Hunk admitted. “But, if we come across something that you need to know to make sense of the story, we’ll fill you in a bit.” He looked at the others. “Does that seem fair?”

Lance and Pidge looked at each other, and then shrugged. 

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Lance said. He jolted with a look of sudden realization. 

“Keith! Please tell me, man, that _you_ have seen this movie!”

Lance sighed dramatically in relief when Keith nodded. “Yeah, but like once, and it was a long time ago.”

“That’s fine,” Lance reassured him. “Just means that you get to refresh yourself on the greatest stop-motion film of all time!”

“Stop-motion?” Allura repeated.

“You’ll see,” Lance said cryptically. 

“Did we still want the synopsis?” Pidge asked.

“Yes, please.” Allura and Coran nodded. “I’m a little nervous now – I’ll take whatever I can get to be prepared!” Allura added. Be pre-pared, she sang in her head.

“Alright, here goes,” Pidge said. She started to read from her screen. “The Nightmare Before Christmas tells the heartfelt tale of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town and all things that go bump in the night. Bored with the same old tricks and treats, he yearns for something more and soon stumbles upon the glorious magic of Christmas Town! Jack decides to bring this joyful holiday back to Halloween Town. But as his dream to fill Santa’s shoes unravels, it’s up to Sally, the rag doll who loves him, to stitch things back together.”

Alright, Allura thought to herself. So Shiro was right, it’s about two holidays. And they have their own towns dedicated to them? That is an interesting way to celebrate.

“We ready now?” Lance asked. The others nodded. “Then take it away, Pidge!” Allura did not see Pidge remove anything, but she started the movie a second later, so Allura figured that was what Lance had meant.

The movie started in the same way Allura had gotten used to, with the same sky, river, castle, and fireworks, as she now knew they were. Lance, as he always did, read the word Disney.

A moment later, red words appeared on a black background. “Walt Disney Picture presents,” Lance read.

Some instruments started to play while new words appeared. “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Lance once again read.

“Why do you always read the words, Lance?” Allura asked curiously. “I mean, thank you, but why?”

“Do I? Huh, I hadn’t realized,” Lance said looking surprised. “I guess I’m just used to watching these movies with little kids who can’t read yet, so I just sort of automatically read it out like I would for them.”

Alright, that was maybe the sweetest thing Allura had ever heard from Lance.

“Excuse me, but who is Tim Burton?” Coran asked. Pidge, who had paused the movie when Allura and Lance started talking, sighed.

“He’s the director,” Pidge explained.

“No, I don’t think so,” Hunk said, looking like he was thinking hard. “I’m pretty sure Tim Burton was working on something else at the time, and he only produced this movie, and some other guy directed.” 

“Really? I always thought he directed it,” Lance said.

“We can check at the end,” said Hunk. “But I’m pretty sure.”

“Guys, while this is discussion is extremely riveting, can we please get back to my movie?” Pidge asked sarcastically.

“If we must,” Lance sighed dramatically. Pidge shot him a look, which he apologetically responded to with, “Sorry, only joking. Of course, let’s play it.”

The screen now zoomed in on a forest, to be more precise on a circle of trees, each of which had some curious looking designs on them. There was something bright red, something bright green, some sort of bird, a bright-looking tree (which seemed redundant), and something orange with a creepily grinning face, but before Allura could get a good look at it, it opened, and the camera zoomed into the darkness of the tree.

The whole time Allura was watching this a voice was narrating something about “the holiday worlds of old,” and “where holidays come from.” Was this an origin story for these holidays?

She forgot about that a moment later. The music was getting faster, and some sort of doll-thing was pointing towards something in the distance.

It turned out to be a field with stone carvings, while shadows sang about seeing something strange. This was pretty strange, alright. 

Orange things that looked like the door from earlier (Pumpkins? Allura thought, listening to the lyrics) were impaled on a fence, while white flowing things with faces floated around and sang. The white things kept singing about “this town of Halloween,” so maybe this was an introduction to the town. She remembered that Halloween was one of the holidays in this movie.

Allura let out a little shiver at the next two characters introduced. They were more than a little unnerving. This was part of the holiday?

Next it was some pale caped creatures which flew away. Allura outright jumped a moment later when more creatures jumped out of a trashcan. They looked like monsters from stories she was told as children. 

But she wasn’t scared, she declared to herself even as more characters, flying on sticks, assured that it was alright if she was.

Then they dove into another tree, this one talking, with… were those skeletons hanging from its branches!?

As more characters were introduced, including a disturbing looking “clown” and a shadow on a moon which exploded into winged creatures, Allura had to admitted that she was started to get a little, nervous? Yeah, nervous.

But certainly not scared!

The same doll-figure from the field was brought in, while others sang about “Skeleton Jack, King of the Pumpkin Patch.” For all of her paladin’s reassurances that their planet was not a monarchy, there did seem to be a lot of royalty in these movies.

And now Jack was on fire? Only for a few moments though, before diving into a fountain. When he rose up again he truly looked like a skeleton, albeit one that could move and was wearing a very nice looking suit. 

The song ended, with the characters applauding. Lance and Hunk did as well.

Pidge paused it. “Alright, so got all that?”

She laughed at Allura and Coran’s looks. “I’m joking. I know that was probably weird.”

“That’s one word for it,” Allura said, while Coran let out a shudder.

“The word I’d use is disturbing,” he said. “This is how you celebrate holidays?”

“Well, not really,” Shiro said. “It’s more like-”

“Shiro,” Pidge said warningly, cutting him off. 

“But they’ve got to be confused!” Shiro protested.

“Well, then they better get used to it,” Pidge replied. She looked between Allura and Coran. “And just so you two know, I was holding myself back from singing and quoting along with this first song. I can’t promise I’ll do the same for the rest.”

“Oh, good, sing-along!” Lance said excitedly.

Pidge resumed the movie. The characters on screen were all congratulating each other on a great Halloween. In particular they were congratulating and complimenting Jack. A man in a wheelchair tried to drag off a girl Allura has seen in the background of the previous song, but she… tore off her arm and ran away while her arm beat the man on the head?

This movie was weird.

Meanwhile, Jack seemed to be uncomfortable with the ongoing praise. He managed to slip away while the others were distracted by prizes and awards. Wait, was that first prize for “Most blood drained in a single evening?” What?

Coran met her gaze. “Most blood drained?” he mouthed. Allura shook her head. This was a strange holiday that humans celebrated.

Jack wandered off by himself, going into the field with the statues from earlier, where the girl, whose name Allura had missed, was hiding. 

“Did you have cemeteries on Altea?” Hunk asked Allura curiously.

“What’s a cemetery?” Allura responded. Hunk looked at Pidge, who groaned but did pause it.

“Cemeteries are where the dead are buried,” Shiro explained.

Both Coran and Allura were startled. “You _bury_ your dead?” Allura asked, hoping a little that she had misheard. 

“You don’t?” Keith asked, like it was a normal thing to do.

“No!” Allura exclaimed. 

“Usually we burn them,” Coran said. “And scatter their ashes into space so they can rejoin the stars.”

“We kind of have that too, apart from the stars bit,” Shiro said. “Some people do choose to be cremated. But one of, if not the most, common way is to bury the dead in a graveyard, and then mark the spot with a gravestone, which is what you can see here.”

“This way they can rejoin the Earth,” Keith added.

“Aww, Keith,” Hunk said, reaching over to pat him on his shoulder. “That was surprisingly poetic.”

“Does this make sense now?” Pidge asked, clearly impatient to resume.

Allura and Coran nodded, and while she still found the practice odd, and seeing just how many gravestones there were made her feel a bit uncomfortable to think that each marked the place of a body, Allura supposed that it wasn’t a terrible system. At least they didn’t eat their dead; she knew of one culture that disposed of their dead that way.

Pidge had resumed the movie as soon as Coran and Allura had nodded. Allura was curious as to what the white flowy thing that Jack seemed to have summoned was, but didn’t ask about it as Jack was now singing to himself. His song mostly seemed to be him bragging about how scary he was (which, ironically, made Allura feel less scared of him). 

Allura saw something out of the corner of her eye, and turning, she could see Pidge waving her arms about in the same motions Jack was making, mouthing along with the words. 

Seemed Pidge couldn’t restrain herself even that much for long. “The Pumpkin King!” Pidge declared out loud at the same time Jack did. Allura smiled at her antics.

She then let out a small gasp as she turned back to the screen. The image of Jack climbing up a hill, with a huge full moon illuminating him, was pretty, even if he was a skeleton.

Jack was now singing about wanting something more from his life, to experience something different than what he always had. Kind of like Ariel, Allura supposed, only it didn’t seem like Jack had anything in particular in mind, he just wanted something… more.

If Allura had thought that Jack walking up the hill had been pretty, then Jack going down the hill was gorgeous. The hill unraveling slowly to allow Jack to walk on it was unexpected, but as Jack wandered off, the visuals, the lyrics, along with the emotion in his voice, allowed Allura to feel actual sympathy for him. And again, he was a skeleton! The things Disney could do…

“What do you think, Lance?” Hunk asked. “Best ‘I want’ song?” 

“Hmm, hard to say,” Lance mused. “There’s so many to choose from. Top five for sure though.”

“I want song?” Keith asked, sounding confused.

“Sure,” Lance said. “A character’s song at the beginning of the film where they sing about what it is that they want. Like Ariel wants to be where the people are, Belle wants adventure, Anna wants true love, etc. And here, Jack wants something different and new.”

“I only recognize like half of those names,” Keith said.

“…Keith,” Lance frown at him. “I’m not mad, just disappointed.”

“You’re not my dad,” Keith responded.

“That’s right,” Shiro spoke up.

Keith turned to him. “You’re not my dad either!”

Shiro gasped at him with a look of (mock?) hurt. Before he could respond Pidge spoke.

“Guys, for the love of all that is good and holy, could you please shut up!”

“Sorry, Pidge,” Lance, Keith, and Shiro said at the same time, looking abashed.

While they had been talking, the doll, Sally, had apparently returned to her… Father? Master? Creator?... and gotten her arm back.

Jack was still wandering through the woods, with his pale companion.

“What manner of creature is that?” asked Coran.

“Oh, that’s Zero,” Hunk explained. “Jack’s dog.”

“He doesn’t look like the dog from the last movie,” Coran pointed out. 

“Well, no,” Hunk conceded. “That’s because he’s a ghost here.”

“A ghost?” Coran asked. 

“Oh, please tell me you know what ghosts are,” Pidge begged, clearly not wanting to stop the movie again to explain.

“We do, we do,” Allura reassured her. “I’ve just never heard of ghosts animals before.”

“It’s not really common on Earth, either,” Shiro said. “We tend to stick to human ghosts in our myths.”

“What do you mean, myths?” Keith asked.

“Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts!” Lance said, giving Keith a very judging look.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about the afterlife,” Keith said simply.

“Paladins, while I would love to hear more of this conversation, I fear that Number Five might combust if you keep talking,” Coran said. Allura looked, and sure enough, Pidge was literally vibrating in her seat.

“Oh, shoot, yeah, everyone be quiet, one of the most important parts is coming up,” Lance said quickly. “Everyone pay attention.”

Looking back at the screen, Jack seemed to have wandered into the same part of the forest that was shown at the beginning of the movie, complete with the circle of trees with odd doors on them.

“So, if we entered the orange door earlier, and got to Halloween Town,” Allura said, thinking out loud. “Does that mean that the other doors lead to other holidays?”

“It does,” Shiro said. “Nice deduction.”

Of course, now Allura was stuck wondering what sorts of holidays were focused around a brown bird, a sort of colorful oval, a heart, and a green plant. However, all of those doors paled in comparison to the one that caught Jack’s attention, that of another tree which was shiny and covered in bright objects. Allura couldn’t blame Jack for being drawn to it.

As soon as Jack opened that door, he was sucked in, falling down into a swirl of black and purple. He landed on a white hill and looked out onto a bright looking town. Jack had a continued look of amazement on his face, and Allura could empathize. She liked how everything looked as well, though she was not sure what she was looking at exactly.

Turns out Jack didn’t either. “What’s this, what’s this?” he continuously asked, looking around him and singing about what he was seeing.

It appeared that Pidge and Lance had both given up on trying not to sing, and were belting out Jack’s lines along with him; at least, to the best of their ability. Some their lines sounded more like gibberish than actual words to Allura.

At Keith’s look Lance defended them with, “Hey, it’s a holiday movie! It’s awesome, but I don’t have _all_ of it memorized!”

As Jack kept up with his song, Allura was grateful that someone else in the movie seemed to not know what these strange new items were. She wasn’t sure if a human watching the movie would know what they were, but she suspected they would. She felt a lot like Jack, an outsider trying to piece together what these peculiar things were.

For example, why were there strings of colorful lights everywhere? What was mistletoe? Why _were_ they decorating a tree? What were these small people building? And who were they, for that matter? 

And who was that large man laughing in a doorway that Jack was looking at so curiously? At least Allura knew the name of the place now, Christmas Town. Allura recalled that being mentioned in the synopsis.

“I rather liked that song,” Coran said as the scene changed to the Halloween residents wondering where Jack was. “It was quite fun!”

“I agree, Coran,” Allura said. “Though I admit to having a few questions.”

“Save them for later,” Pidge said. “Remember I still want you guys to guess what these holidays are about at the end.”

“Yes, yes, alright,” Allura agreed.

The Halloween residents were _very_ worried now, and Sally seemed to hear the alarm they set off. Allura was curious as to what exactly she was doing as she mixed various items into a pot. 

Turns out she was making soup, though not any soup that Allura would like to eat. (Admittedly, however, the color did remind her a lot of food goo.) Allura’s disinclination towards the soup grew when Sally switched out her spoon to one with holes in it to avoid drinking it.

“Oh, clever,” Allura heard Coran whisper. Apparently he had caught on to something that she hadn’t yet. Allura wasn’t certain what it was, but she felt a little unsettled at Sally’s look of eagerness as she watched the man drink down the soup straight from the bowl. 

“Good thing he didn’t ask for the spoon back,” commented Keith.

Jack returned, to the glee of Halloween Town. Jack called together a town meeting, and now Allura saw what Sally had done: she had clearly added something to the soup that had made the small man fall asleep so that she could sneak out! Now that Allura thought about it, she thought that she had heard the two talk about Sally doing things like that before.

“Does she really have to drug him just to sneak off?” Allura asked.

“I don’t think she would have been allowed to go any other way,” Hunk said. “That guy said something before about her ‘not being ready for so much excitement’ yet. I guess she just feels bored or curious or something and wants to be part of things.”

“Part of that world,” Lance jokingly sang. Allura supposed she could see a bit of similarity between Sally’s and Ariel’s motives, although she wasn’t sure she agreed with drugging/poisoning the people who care for you.

She couldn’t think about the ethics of Sally’s actions right now, however. Jack was explaining what he had found to the Halloween residents, in yet another song.

But no matter how hard he tried, it seemed that Jack couldn’t get the others to understand what it was that he had found, or what made it so special. The others could only see things in terms of Halloween, it seemed, (though Allura was a little disturbed at what they found normal: “rotten and covered in gook?”) and Jack seemed to be getting fed up that he couldn’t get through to them, eventually seeming just to make things up about a “Sandy Claws” person to excite them.

“Is he talking about Santa-” Keith started to ask.

“Keith, hush!” Lance admonished him. “Just let it unfold. But yes, they are,” he added a moment later.

It appeared that Jack was able to bring back a lot of things from Christmas Town, as his room was decked out in various items Allura recognized from there. Wait…

“Did he steal those things?” Allura asked the others.

“Eh, probably,” Pidge shrugged. “I’ve always been more concerned with how he was able to get them all back through that tree portal, honestly.”

“I’ve always kind of thought that there’s a similar forest near each holiday town, if you just walk out into the woods far enough,” Shiro said. “So Jack just had to wander deep enough into some woods near Christmas Town until he stumbled upon Christmas Town’s tree portals.”

“Hmm, interesting theory,” Pidge mused. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

Jack held up a book. “The scientific method,” Lance read aloud. Allura smiled at him gratefully.

Jack went to Sally’s place to borrow equipment from her creator. Allura was a little concerned at the phrase “curiosity killed the cat.”

“And knowledge brought it back,” Pidge added right after that line was spoken. “No one ever says the second part.”

Jack then spent awhile trying to take apart various items he brought back from Christmas Town. Allura wasn’t really sure what he was trying to do, or even what most of the objects were, so she only had Jack’s expressions to inform her if things were going as he expected. Based on them, they were not.

“Awww,” Hunk said while Sally was gathering things into a basket. “She’s so sweet-ohmygosh!”

Hunk cried out, along with Coran, as Sally suddenly jumped out her window, landing hard on the ground below. Fortunately she got up after a moment.

“I forgot she did that,” Hunk whispered, as Sally started to literally pull herself together. “Geez, she must really like Jack.”

Allura saw what Hunk meant a moment later, as Sally delivered the basket to Jack through his window. Though it wasn’t full of items Allura would like to eat, which included what appeared to be a fish skeleton, Jack looked grateful. But before he could thank her Sally had disappeared.

“So sweet, but so shy,” Lance shook his head, as Sally hid behind a wall and started picking parts off of a plant.

“Alright, now I remember this bit,” Keith said, as the plant turned into one of those decorated trees from Christmas Town, and then caught on fire and burned, to Allura’s shock. “It never really made sense to me. What exactly is this? Is she physic?”

“I don’t really know,” Lance said, shrugging. “Ideas, guys?”

“My best guess is that it’s some sort of divine holiday force trying to warn Sally,” Shiro said. “Since she’s the only one who would have the brains to think about the holiday objectively, and not just follow Jack.”

“That’s pretty good,” Hunk said. “I honestly never really questioned it before.”

It was now the next day, and the Halloween residents were once again worried about Jack. Allura was worried for Sally, who seemed to have spent the whole night in that same spot by the fence.

Jack paced about his room, singing about how obsessed with Christmas he was, even though he couldn’t fully understand it, and his memories of what the town was like or felt like seemed to be slipping from him.

His solution to the problem? Stop worrying about all that, and just take over Christmas instead! Allura couldn’t see this going wrong in any way.

That was a lie. She could see it going wrong easily, especially with Sally’s vision still fresh in her memory. 

“Chewie, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Lance said in a deep voice.

Hunk let out a peculiar-sounding roar. Both he and Lance laughed pretty hard at that.

“Hey, Star- Nerds, wrong franchise,” Pidge told them.

“What are…?” Allura started to ask.

“Later,” Lance promised.

Apparently it was easy enough for Jack to recruit the rest of Halloween Town to take over Christmas. As he assigned jobs to various characters Allura was once again struck by how strange some of them were. The three small children in masks (why were they wearing masks?) were perhaps the most normal (relatively speaking) among them, and even they looked rather odd.

A minute later Allura took back that thought. These kids were not odd – they were downright _unsettling_. They began to sing (which Allura was not surprised by – there seemed to be a high number of songs in this movie). But the content of their song…. These were children, right? Singing about kidnapping a person was bad enough, but singing about boiling him, burying him, cooking him, blowing him up, beating him with a stick, chopping him into bits, and more besides, and with such _glee_ … to say Allura was disturbed would be an understatement. 

And who was this Oogie Boogie character they kept singing about? She assumed it was the being who lived below the children in the tree, but Allura could only hear his laugh, or see shadows of him. His shadow and voice seemed a bit familiar somehow, but the way that he was hidden, combined with the fact that the three were singing about feeding Santa Claus to him, made Allura feel more than a little wary of him.

What concerned her the most, however, was how _happy _the paladins were during this song. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge were singing along with obvious enthusiasm and merriment. Keith was watching intently, seemingly immersed by it. Even Shiro had what appeared to be a fond smile on his face.__

__“What?” he asked Allura, when he caught her staring at him in horror._ _

__“…nothing.” Allura looked at Coran, who was looking rather pale. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes away from what he was watching._ _

__Not for the first time, Allura thought about how these movies were for children. How utterly… concerning._ _

__At least the song was over quickly, and the movie cut back to Jack giving out more Christmas jobs to the others. When it was Sally’s turn she tried to warn Jack about what she saw, but Jack didn’t listen at all, which was rather rude. The three children returned soon after, their black bag full in their walking tub._ _

__Also, did that man have an ax coming out of his head?_ _

__Instead of Santa Claus (whoever that was) it seemed that the children had captured a large pink animal with big ears instead._ _

__“Are we supposed to know who that is?” Coran asked._ _

__“It’s the Easter Bunny,” Hunk explained. “Easter’s another holiday; we actually saw a door for it earlier, but it’s not a holiday focused on here.”_ _

__Allura supposed that, based on the things she had seen for the two holidays so far, a holiday about a large pink bunny was not all that odd, all things considered._ _

__“You’d think he would have told them which door to go through,” Shiro said as Jack berated the three for getting the wrong being. “He should have given them all the information they needed to complete their mission.”_ _

__“Yeah,” Keith said. “It’s the responsible, leader thing to do.”_ _

__“Oh shut up,” Shiro said fondly. A moment later he added, “It is, though. Take notes, Keith.”_ _

__“Oh shut up,” Keith said back to him in the same tone, but more exaggerated and a lot more mocking. Allura chuckled a little at their antics._ _

__A moment later yet another song started. Just how many were in this movie? The Halloween residents were now “making Christmas.” Apparently that meant mutilating toys and hiding them in boxes and packages. Also adapting dead animals into clothing and toys?_ _

__Though perhaps that was all just how the Halloween residents were doing it. Throughout the song it cut back to what looked like Christmas Town, where the residents there were also assumedly getting ready for Christmas. They were also creating things and wrapping those things in boxes, but in this case it was more along the lines of cookies and pleasant-looking toys, and… stuffing large socks with them? Alright, so this didn’t make a lot of sense either, but at least it looked a lot nicer._ _

__When the song ended it was only two days until Christmas. And only now did the three creepy children succeed in capturing Santa Claus, to Jack’s excitement. This was the first point in the movie where Allura could actually see Santa in his entirety. He was a large old man, dressed in red and with a full white beard. Allura had suspected most of that, after seeing Jack’s visions and drawings, but she was a little surprised by how large he was._ _

__“Kinda disappointing how after their whole song, all they do to capture Santa is just throw a bag over him,” Keith said._ _

__Allura looked at him with concern. “Did you actually want to see them do all of those awful things to this poor old man?”_ _

__“No,” Keith said after a pause that was too long for Allura’s liking. “Just would have been nice to see something a little more creative.”_ _

__When the tick-or-treaters showed off Santa Claus to Jack and the rest of Halloween, they all gasped and leaned away as though they were scared of him. Allura could see the irony._ _

__The poor old man didn’t seem to know what was going on. And to top it all off, Jack stole his hat. Allura really questioned who she was supposed to be rooting for in this movie._ _

__Sally seemed to also be thinking the same thing. As she couldn’t convince Jack, it seemed that she was moving on to outright sabotage with fog juice, whatever that was (though Allura could guess)._ _

__Somehow the three masked children managed to push Santa Claus down a tiny pipe in their house. He landed with a thud in a dark room that was lit by strange glowing figures. Santa looked up, and there was Oogie Boogie. He resembled a green bag, if a green bag had a face, could move about, had bugs in its mouth, and could sing._ _

__Of course it could sing. Allura was surprised that the inanimate objects in the room weren’t singing, for crying out loud._ _

__And now the objects in the room were joining in on the song. Of course. Why not?_ _

__Funny enough, though Oogie Boogie was certainly still unnerving, his song was actually making Allura less scared of him than before. Maybe it was the almost goofy tone of the song, or maybe because it looked like he would fall apart if someone ripped out his stitching, but Allura was not as scared of him now as she had been before when he was being built up._ _

__If she had been scared of him, that is. Which of course she hadn’t been. Merely properly cautious._ _

__It seemed like Santa was scared, though. Allura couldn’t fault him. Oogie Boogie was singing about harming him, after all._ _

__“What are you going to do?” Santa Claus asked._ _

__“I’m going to do the best I can,” Oogie Boogie replied._ _

__Pidge let out a happy groan. “Freaking love that line.”_ _

__“Favorite villain song?” Hunk whispered to Lance._ _

__“Top five,” Lance whispered back._ _

__Oogie Boogie finished his song with a deep, evil sounding laugh, and the scene changed to Jack getting ready to leave for Christmas, the rest of Halloween there to see him off. Sally now utilized her fog juice, and it did exactly what Allura expected: created a fog. She wasn’t sure what the point of that was, however._ _

__Oh. So Jack was going to be flying, and the fog would make it so that he and the (reindeer?) wouldn’t be able to see. That sort of made sense, but Allura could think of some other methods she would have used to try and stop Jack first before “create weather hazard.”_ _

__Though it seemed to be working. At least until Zero, with his glowing nose showed up, which was apparently bright enough to fix the problem._ _

__Shiro must have seen Allura’s expression, because he said, “That scene is actually a reference to a famous Christmas story, so that’s why it happened the way it did.”_ _

__“Oh, alright then,” Allura said. She wondered how many other scenes were references to other holiday stories or myths that she was missing._ _

__Sally was singing her own sad solo. It didn’t seem to be about much, just Sally’s worries and feelings for Jack, but it was sweet in a way._ _

__“Girl, you can do better,” Pidge said to Sally._ _

__“What!?” Lance cried out. “But they’re meant to be!”_ _

__“Dear friend?” Coran repeated after Sally, focused on the song and not the paladins. “Haven’t they only talked to each other twice? And that was mostly just about Jack’s outfit!”_ _

__“See, Coran agrees with me,” Pidge said to Lance, sticking her tongue out at him._ _

__“Ugh, back me up Hunk,” Lance said, looking up at Hunk._ _

__“Sorry buddy,” Hunk said, looking back at Lance apologetically, “but their relationship is pretty one sided.”_ _

__“Betrayed.” Lance looked at Hunk with hurt eyes._ _

__Lance turned desperately to Keith, who shook his head without looking away from the screen. Sighing, Lance looked up at Shiro._ _

__“It could be love,” Shiro conceded. “But not until later on,” he added._ _

__“I’ll take it,” Lance declared firmly. “And leader’s votes count for five, so we win!”_ _

__“Wait, were we voting?” Hunk asked, confused._ _

__“Shiro’s didn’t count for more when we voted at the start,” Coran pointed out._ _

__“Paladins, Coran, quiet, please!” Allura ordered. She was trying to make sense of what was now happening on screen, and did not appreciate the distractions._ _

__Jack was flying through the sky, and emerging from some clouds, saw what appeared to be a human town. It looked different from the town she had seen in The Little Mermaid._ _

__“It’s a neighborhood,” Shiro said. “Basically a residential area mostly full of houses where humans live.”_ _

__“And does this movie take place in the past?” Allura asked, still thinking about the last movie._ _

__“Technically yes, but not as far back in the past as the last movie,” Shiro said. “This is a lot closer to how humans live now.”_ _

__Finally, Allura thought. About time she actually got to see how modern humans live. It only took most of three movies!_ _

__Jack landed on the roof of one of the houses, where a little boy seemed to be expecting Santa. But apparently he was not expecting to see a skeleton dressed as Santa, which honestly made sense. The poor boy seemed to be in shock when Jack talked to him. Jack gave him one of the wrapped packages, which seemed to be expected according to the boys’ parents. Receiving what looked like a shrunken head seemed to not be, based on their screams._ _

__The movie showed a man, apparently the police, being contacted by a ringing communicator without a screen, where someone screamed about their Christmas toys attacking them._ _

__Oh, Jack, Allura thought to herself as she shook her head at his actions. A series of clips followed, each showing Jack leaving toys or presents at different houses, only for those items to scare, frighten, and attack the people who lived there._ _

__Allura couldn’t blame them when they started locking up and barricading their homes. It was just common sense._ _

__The police was getting overwhelmed with complaints, and a woman, whose communicator this time had a screen, warned about a shameless impersonator of Santa Claus. Since “reports were coming in from all over the globe,” Jack must be traveling all over the Earth (assuming that’s what “globe” referred to)._ _

__At least Sally was going to go help Santa. That was good._ _

__When the screen showed Jack again, Allura wasn’t sure for a moment what it was that the humans were doing. But a moment later it became obvious that they were readying their weapons and aiming them at Jack. Allura understood that, and she was a literal alien to Earth, so it said a lot about how naïve Jack was that he didn’t get it._ _

__Now they could see what Sally’s plan was, and Allura was… confused._ _

__“Wait, her plan is to distract Oogie Boogie with her leg? There’s no way that would work whyisthatworking!?”_ _

__Shiro looked flustered. “Um, it’s because it’s…” Shiro reached over and placed his hands over Pidge’s ears. “Sexy,” he whispered to Allura._ _

__Pidge shoved him off. “Knock it off Shiro, I’m 14 for crying out loud!”_ _

__“But… how?” Allura asked. “It’s… a leg?”_ _

__“Maybe it’s something just Oogie Boogie is attracted to?” Shiro suggested._ _

__“But then how would Sally know that would work?” Allura pressed._ _

__Lance looked over at Allura. “Look, Princess, if you want I’ll teach you all about physical attraction for humans later, but right now we’re getting towards the climax of the movie.”_ _

__“Oh, alright,” Allura said, deciding to let it go for now. A moment later she whipped her head over to Lance. “Wait, I didn’t mean-!”_ _

__“Too late!” Lance shouted triumphantly. “You already agreed!”_ _

__Allura wanted to protest more, but Pidge shushed her before she could. Maybe if she ignored and forgot about that, then Lance would too. Besides, she really did want to see what was happening in the movie._ _

__Sally’s plan to get Santa out had failed, and Jack was finally realizing that he was being shot at. That realization came too late, however, and he was shot down, and he and the sleigh plummeted towards the ground. Though she knew that Jack had brought this on himself, Allura still felt a little bad for him as he cried out, “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!” mournfully as he fell._ _

__For a moment everything looked bleak, with Jack presumed dead and Santa still trapped. Fortunately Jack was shown to be okay a few moments later, laying in what Allura realized was another graveyard._ _

__And of course, the first thing he did when he woke up was to start singing. Of course it was._ _

__Although, Allura rather liked this song. At least here Jack was admitting that he had done something wrong, and was apologetic about it. Allura also liked how the camera was spinning around Jack while he sang – it was a nice visual touch, and really emphasized Jack’s sorrow._ _

__He got over that feeling pretty quick though, and was soon reveling in what he had done. And for the first time all movie, it seemed that Jack was finally proud and happy of who he was and what he did._ _

__Though Allura admitted she did laugh pretty hard when Jack ripped off the remains of his Santa suit only to reveal that he had been wearing his other suit underneath it the whole time._ _

__“Wait, does this graveyard connect with Halloween Town?” Coran asked as Jack opened some doors in the ground and ran through._ _

__“I guess?” Hunk said hesitantly. “Maybe graveyards are all connected to Halloween Town somehow?”_ _

__“That’s a rather disturbing thought,” Keith said._ _

__“Then don’t think about it,” Lance advised. “The best part’s coming up!”_ _

__Allura sighed. “Let me guess, it’s another song?” She knew how much Lance liked the songs in these movies. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like the songs here, but it felt like there were twice as many here as in the other movies, and it was strange to hear so many so close together._ _

__“Actually, no,” Lance said to Allura’s surprise. “Just the literal on-screen representation of badass-itude and swagger-y!”_ _

__“I don’t think either of those are words,” Keith said, but for once Lance ignored him, focused on the screen._ _

__Jack made it to Oogie Boogie’s, where he was about to… dump Santa and Sally into what appeared to be lava? Quiznack…_ _

__Oogie Boogie pulled the lever, but when his prisoners didn’t fall in he pulled the platform back to reveal Jack laying there nonchalantly, but with a grim expression on his face._ _

__“Such swagger-y,” Coran admired. Lance beamed proudly at him while Keith groaned._ _

__Oogie Boogie and Jack were now “in a dangerous game of cat and mouse,” as Hunk put it while they fought onscreen. Hunk continued, “But the question has to be asked: Who is the cat, and who is the mouse?”_ _

__“Jack is the cat,” Lance, Pidge, Keith, and Shiro said in unison._ _

__“Yeah, I know that,” Hunk said. “I was just… never mind.”_ _

__The fight continued, with Oogie Boogie bringing out more and more outlandish traps. But as it went on, he started to look more flustered and scared, while Jack maintained the same serious but calm attitude he had at the start._ _

__Oogie Boogie leapt away, not realizing a thread of his was caught on the ground. “How dare you treat my friends so shamefully!” Jack cried out to him, pulling on the thread and literally tearing Oggie Boogie’s skin off._ _

__“Badass-itude,” Coran said, in awe._ _

__“No Coran, it’s just – you know what, forget it,” Keith said, sighing._ _

__It seemed that Oogie Boogie was composed of just a bunch of bugs, and without his skin he started to fall apart. Santa squished the last one under his boot angrily. Jack tried to apologize to him, but he was understandably angry and annoyed, though he assured them that he could fix Christmas as he flew off, which was apparently something he could do. Alright._ _

__The kids and the mayor found Jack and Sally soon afterwards, interrupting what Allura was sure was a moment between them. Jack did not look happy about being interrupted._ _

__And Santa Claus _was_ fixing Christmas! That was good._ _

__Lance and Pidge chanted along with the Halloween residents as they celebrated Jack being back._ _

__Aww, and Santa made it snow for Halloween Town. That was sweet, and very forgiving, of him. Everyone seemed to be happy, and playing around in the snow. Only Sally seemed worried as she went off by herself to the mountain Jack sang on before._ _

__And it looked like Jack wanted to repeat that experience as he arrived and started singing to Sally._ _

__“Dearest friend,” Coran scoffed to himself, but quietly enough to not interrupt the song._ _

__“Just accept their love Coran,” Lance whispered to him. He glanced at Keith. “You too, Keith.”_ _

__“I didn’t even say anything!” Keith protested._ _

__“I knew what you were thinking,” Lance said simply._ _

__Whether Allura thought the two were in love or not, she had to admit it did make a nice picture, that of Sally and Jack embracing on the snow-topped mountain, the moon illuminating them. Zero flew off into the sky, and on that note the movie turned black._ _

__Allura knew enough now to expect what was coming next, and sure enough, words which she knew to be the credits appeared a moment later._ _

__“See!” Hunk shouted, making the others jump. “Right there! Directed by Henry Selick, not Tim Burton!”_ _

__“You were right, Hunk,” Shiro said. “Good job.”_ _

__“Huh,” Lance said. “Then why don’t we say Henry Selick’s Nightmare Before Christmas?”_ _

__“Not as big a name, probably,” Pidge suggested, pausing the movie. She turned to Allura, and then to Coran. “Sooo… what did you two think of it?”_ _

__“It was… confusing and concerning, but fun,” Allura settled on._ _

__“I did like it,” Coran said. “But it was very strange. And very song-based,” he added._ _

__“Oh, yes!” Allura said. “There were so many songs in it!”_ _

__Shiro laughed. “I know. We called the others musicals, but this one is more like what a true musical is, where most of the story is told through songs. Most Disney films only have about five; this one was definitely above average.”_ _

__“Let’s get to the fun part!” Lance said. He turned serious and pointed at both Allura and Coran. “You both were exposed to two prominent Earth holidays tonight. Based on the movie you have just witnessed, what would you say they are about?”_ _

__Both Allura and Coran took a moment to think._ _

__“Well,” Allura said slowly. “One of them is called Halloween.” The others nodded. “And it’s about… scaring people?”_ _

__“So far so good,” Lance said. “Coran? Anything to add?”_ _

__“…Does it take place at night?” Coran said. “It was dark there a lot.”_ _

__“Hmm, somewhat,” Lance said. “Some of the most important parts take place at night, for sure.”_ _

__“There were a lot of strange creatures in the movie,” Allura said. “Were they part of it too?”_ _

__“Some were made up for the movie, but yeah, a lot of the creatures we saw were classic Halloween characters,” Pidge agreed._ _

__“And they all live together in a town, and spend all year planning a big song and dance number about scaring people, and perform it on Halloween night?” Allura added, Coran nodding along with her._ _

__“Erm, no, not so much,” Lance admitted. “That’s kinda just in the movie.”_ _

__“But their town is accessible to the human realm by graveyard?” Coran tried to clarify._ _

__“Well, no. Actually, the whole town thing is made up for the movie, and pretty much all the characters that we saw in the town are just myths and don’t actually exist. Keith, just go with it,” Lance added as Keith looked like he wanted to interject something._ _

__“Alright,” Allura said. “So this was just an adaptation of some of the myths and traditions surrounding this holiday?”_ _

__“Wow, you catch on fast,” said Hunk. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”_ _

__“You guys pretty much got it,” Pidge said proudly. “Halloween is this day that happens once a year, where we kind of celebrate scary things and being scared. We dress up in costume, and at night kids go trick-or-treating, where they go to different houses, say ‘trick-or-treat’ and get candy. That’s pretty much it.”_ _

__“Oh, so the three children in the movie who kidnapped Santa were these trick-or-treaters?” Allura clarified._ _

__“Yep!” Lance said. “It all make sense now?”_ _

__“Mostly,” Allura said, at the same time as Coran said, “Somewhat.”_ _

__“We could always do it sometime,” Keith suggested. “I mean, there’re only seven of us, so trick-or-treating would be hard, but we could dress up and eat candy and stuff.”_ _

__“Yeah, space-candy for Space-Halloween!” Lance cheered. “Good idea, Keith!” Keith smiled at Lance’s compliment._ _

__“So how about for Christmas?” Shiro asked. “Do you understand that holiday?”_ _

__“Mostly,” Coran said, at the same time as Allura said, “Somewhat.”_ _

__Everyone chuckled. “Alright, well, what do you think?” Shiro asked._ _

__“Well…” Allura said. “Halloween is about fear and being scared. And Christmas seems to be the opposite, about joy and being happy?”_ _

__“Yes, I felt that too,” Coran said. “There’s also something about putting a tree indoors, placing items on it, and putting gifts underneath, which are placed by Santa for children? The toys are made in Christmas Town, and once a year Santa flies to each house and leaves the gifts? And lights seem to be important – there are lights everywhere, on the trees, on the houses, in all sorts of colors. Oh, and candy and food seems to play an important role here as well.”_ _

__Allura, along with everyone else, looked at Coran in shock._ _

__“That’s… amazingly accurate, Coran,” Shiro said, astonished. “And you were right too, Allura,” he added, looking at her. “Christmas takes place on one of the darkest days of the year; well, at least where we live. So it’s a celebration of light and laughter, joy and hope, so that we can remember these things, and have a good time with and show our love and appreciation for family and friends.”_ _

__“Shiro: pilot, paladin, poet,” Keith said. The other paladins laughed, but Allura thought that the idea of a holiday like that sounded beautiful._ _

__“There’s also this little thing called religion, Shiro, which plays a pretty important role in the holiday, ever heard of it?” Pidge asked him._ _

__“Pidge, you’re atheist,” Lance said to her._ _

__“Doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the millions of people who celebrate it religiously,” Pidge said defensively._ _

__“How is this holiday religious?” Allura asked. She hadn’t seen anything that hinted towards that in the movie._ _

__The paladins looked at each other, clearly no one wanting to be the first to try and explain it. Shiro sighed._ _

__“It’s rather long and complicated,” he said. “Tell you what – if we ever get a chance to celebrate Halloween, we’ll pick a day to celebrate Christmas too, and we’ll explain it all to you then.”_ _

__“That sounds fair,” Allura conceded. She knew that for some cultures, religion was a very personal thing – she wouldn’t push this until the paladins wanted to bring it up themselves._ _

__“Well, I think that just about covers it,” Pidge said. “Any remaining questions?”_ _

__“Just one,” Coran said. “Just to clarify, if there is no Halloween Town, does that mean Christmas Town doesn’t exist either?”_ _

__“Eh, that one at least exists, though it’s mostly called the North Pole, in myths and stories,” Pidge said._ _

__“And in the hearts and minds of children!” Hunk added._ _

__“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” Lance said. Pidge and Shiro chuckled, though Keith looked confused. Allura felt the same, but figured that must be from one of those stories, and didn’t question it._ _

__“Alright team,” Shiro said, standing up and stretching. “That was fun – we’ll have to do this again soon if we can.”_ _

__“Why soon?” Lance asked. “Why not now?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Pidge chimed in. “This one was really short – we could do another.”_ _

__“It’s so hard to get free time where we can all do this,” Hunk added. “We should take advantage of this time while we can.”_ _

__Shiro looked at Keith, who looked a little embarrassed, but sighed and said, “Yeah, me too.”_ _

__“Well, what do you think, Allura and Coran?” Shiro asked. “Up for another one?”_ _

__“I am if the princess is,” Coran said, looking at Allura._ _

__“I am as well,” Allura said. “We really should take advantage of this time we have while we have it.”  
“No need for more excuses, Allura!” Pidge said. “He already agreed! Let’s go! Disney Night Part Two!”_ _

__“Woo!” Lance and Hunk cheered happily._ _

__“Who gets to pick this one?” Keith asked._ _

__“You can if you want, Pidge,” Hunk offered. “Since it was your movie we just watched and all.”_ _

__“That’s good with me,” Pidge said. She went to go get the cup, which only contained two slips of paper now. She gave it to Hunk. “Hunk, if you would be so kind?”_ _

__Hunk smiled and stood, holding the cup near his chest (still above Pidge’s head). Pidge reached in and plucked a scrap of paper before Allura could blink._ _

__“Alright, what Disney masterpiece do we have in store for us?” Pidge asked as she unfolded it. Her eyes scan the paper quickly._ _

__“God dammit!” she suddenly shouted, causing everyone to jump._ _

__“Pidge, language!” Shiro admonished._ _

__“What’s wrong, Number Five?” Coran asked concerned. The others looked similarly worried._ _

__Pidge didn’t seem to hear Coran. Instead, she turned to glare at Keith, hatred in her eyes._ _

__“Keith, we are not freaking watching The Black Cauldron!”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Keith's movie


End file.
